Pancreatic Islets Regeneration. The Bioengineering Approach.

Diabetes mellitus is a major cause of mortality around the world. In fact, the International Diabetes Foundation projects 438 million individuals worldwide will have diabetes by the year 2030. Unfortunately, the treatment of diabetes is not adequate. Standard medical treatment through dietary modification, increased physical activity, medications, and exogenous insulin can undoubtedly reduce the microvascular and macrovascular complications of diabetes. However, even if all standard medical approaches are diligently followed, one cannot confidently eliminate the potential health complications from diabetes. Although allogenic transplantation is the only restorative treatment, issues with donor shortages and lifelong immunosuppression hinder meaningful clinical application. Pioneering technologies in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, however, aim to overcome these current limitations. Novel bioengineering techniques, such as islet encapsulation, decellularization-recellularization and a growing appreciation of using native extracellular matrix as a scaffold for regeneration offers tremendous promise to ultimately bioengineer a functional pancreas capable of curing insulin-dependent diabetes.