Green Genes

University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has discovered a way to use genetically engineered lettuce to make the body produce its own insulin.

Those with type 1 diabetes, often called juvenile diabetes, need daily insulin injections to control their blood sugar levels. But the injections are only a temporary fix because the body still does not make its own insulin.

University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has come up with a way to train the body’s immune system to make its own insulin using genetically engineered lettuce that includes the insulin gene. Instead of injections, which deliver insulin to the bloodstream, Daniell uses the freeze-dried lettuce in powder or capsule form. The lettuce cells protect the insulin as it goes through the digestive system. Once in the intestines, the lettuce cells break down, and the remaining insulin triggers an immune response that results in the body making its own insulin cells.

Diabetic mice treated with Daniell’s therapy showed normal blood and urine sugar levels after eight weeks. “These animals pretty much got cured,” he says.

Daniell’s research has been supported by a $2-million National Institutes of Health grant and limited funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. But Daniell hasn’t been able to raise the $20 million needed for the next step, phase 1 human trials. “We need to find a partner,” he says, adding that a pharmaceutical company, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or the American Diabetes Research Foundation would be ideal.

Next page: Fruit-based approach to controlling blood sugar.

Fruitful Approach

Researchers Joe Ahrens and Daryl Thompson created a compound derived from fruits. They are hoping food companies will add Emulin to their products.

A small Winter Haven startup company, ATM Metabolics, has come up with a tropical fruit-based compound designed to control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, also called adult-onset diabetes. Type 2 accounts for 90% to 95% of all cases of diabetes diagnosed.

Emulin is derived from citrus, blackberries, blueberries and muscadine grapes, particularly the parts near the peel. “We feel that it will treat and reverse diabetes as well as prevent people from becoming diabetics,” says Joe Ahrens, ATM Metabolics’ director of science and a former director of scientific research for the Florida Department of Citrus.

Ahrens and his partner, Daryl Thompson, came up with the product while working on citrus-based weight-management products. “It was an accident,” says Thompson, who previously developed and marketed a grapefruit-based capsule called CitraSens.

Emulin acts like insulin when ingested, says Thompson, counteracting the glycemic impact of high-sugar foods. The two plan to market it as a food additive rather than a drug, which would require extensive human clinical trials. They’re working to persuade a food manufacturer, particularly a soft drink company, to add Emulin to its products. “I would see this happening easily within two years,” says Thompson.