Stem Cell Educator

(green color) inside the device. Educated lymphocytes are returned to the patient’s blood circulation at bottom left.]]
The Stem Cell Educator is a device used to change or "re-educate" the behavior of human immune cells, so as to alleviate or cure certain autoimmune diseases. In particular the device has been studied in the treatment of type 1 diabetes, where a single treatment improves patients' ability to control their own blood sugar. The device has the potential to provide effective treatments for other autoimmune disorders.
Device
are isolated from human cord blood
and act as educators for the patient's immune cells in the chamber. The hydrophobic material from FDA-approved (USP Class VI) Petri dishes tightly binds CB-SCs without interfering with their immune modulating capability.
The chamber for co-culture of lymphocytes and CB-SCs includes nine discs of the material with adherent CB-SCs sandwiched between a top cover plate and a bottom collecting plate. The device is manufactured in a Class 100K clean room and gamma-irradiated prior to introducing CB-SCs and alopecia areata.
The therapy has been shown to be able to "re-educate" immune system T cells to stop them from destroying the patient's insulin-producing pancreas cells. A single treatment is reported to cause safe and lasting improvement in the patient's own control of blood sugar and hence the practical treatment of type 1 diabetes, by reducing autoimmune attack on the islets of langerhans cells that produce insulin.
According to lead researcher Zhao, the same approach might be suitable for other autoimmune diseases including lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Reception
According to USA Today, Luca Inverardi of the Diabetes Research Institute (University of Miami) comments that it is " quite remarkable that this approach, based on the re-education of immune cells, might work so well." The educator treatment appears "so simple and so safe".

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