THE search for treatments for diabetes looks set to take a new direction with
the discovery that it may be possible to switch off the body鈥檚 need for
insulin.
Insulin tells the body how to store sugar. Diabetics lack insulin-making
cells, or are resistant to the hormone鈥檚 effects, and can develop dangerously
high blood sugar.
Gary Ruvkun and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School say in
Nature (vol 389, p 978) that a mutation in the gene DAF-16 of the
roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans does away with the animal鈥檚 need for
the worm equivalent of insulin.
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杏吧原创s have located human equivalents of DAF-16 and it might one
day be possible to treat diabetes by knocking out the gene products. 鈥淭his could
be to diabetes research what the oncogene was to cancer research,鈥� says
Ruvkun.