Recently, a paper by the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory (Communication Author Yang Ki-seok, Co-author: Shim Soo-rim) of the Biotechnology Major (Nature Rev. Bioeng. (2024, September) was published. 

The research team's review paper, titled Encapsulated Islet Transplantation, addresses the basic principles and major challenges of pancreatic ductal encapsulation technology for the treatment of type 1 diabetes in depth. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease in which beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by an autoimmune reaction, resulting in impairment in insulin secretion and blood sugar control. The method of transplanting the pancreas to replace the damaged pancreas has been clinically applied, but it was limited by the immune rejection reaction. Encapsulation technology is designed to protect therapeutic cells from the immune response in the body after transplantation by wrapping pancreatic cells with a transflective membrane. For pancreatic encapsulation technology to be proposed as a new treatment that maintains long-term therapeutic efficacy, an optimized design is needed to induce a sufficient supply of oxygen and nutrients to the transplanted cells, minimize the device's immune response and fibrosis response, and induce revascularization. The research team presented various engineering approaches, research results, and clinical trial status reported until recently, and discussed the combination with gene editing and immunotherapy. 

Professor Jeffrey M. Karp of Harvard Medical School, Professor Eoin D. O'cearbhaill of University of Florida, and Professor Stabler of the University of Florida participated in the international joint research of this study. This study was conducted with the support of the Korea Research Foundation's excellent new researcher support project and the pan-ministerial regenerative medical technology development project.