Diabetes patient speaks out on pig-cell trial

[Celebration]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10641161

Simon Bilton was "excited and a little bit nervous" about having a pig-cell transplant in a type 1 diabetes trial at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland today.

He is the fifth type 1 diabetic to have been treated in the hospital's trial of the revolutionary therapy, which began last October.

Mr Bilton is the first to be given a significantly larger dose of cells than was given to his Middlemore predecessors and to patients in a similar, earlier trial in Russia.

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The insulin-producing cells, coated in a seaweed-based gel, are taken from piglets in the New Zealand herds of Living Cell Technologies.

Living Cell and its trial partners at the hospital are trying to find the optimum dose. Results so far indicate the therapy improves control of blood-sugar levels and reduces the need for insulin injections.