A Revolutionary Capsule For Diabetes

By Devaki

Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 14:41

A revolutionary technique has been found to successfully treat the symptoms of gout. It could result in a new method of therapy for a range of other medical conditions including diabetes and obesity, says the new studies.

Gout is caused by a build up of uric acid in the bloodstream, which makes the crystals of uric acid getting deposited in the kidneys and joints, leading to bouts of extreme pain.

A molecular prosthesis to treat gout is recently made from the human cells. It is designed to detect an increase in the levels of uric acid and to respond by secreting an enzyme called urate oxydase, which destroys uric acid.

The treatment consists of implanting a small plastic capsule under the skin, which is loaded with genetically engineered cells taken from the patients themselves.

The capsule effectively works as a synthetic organ, balancing the body's chemicals and hormones.

"We have constructed a synthetic genetic circuitry that can detect uric acid in the bloodstream and process this information to produce a therapeutic response," explains the researchers.

The clinical trials of this new therapy could begin in two years, says the scientists.

The researchers hope that the technique which use the genetically engineered human cells living in the plastic capsules can be programmed to deal with a range of other metabolic disorders, such as the hormonal imbalances leading to diabetes and obesity.