Researcher's work hits close to home
November 6, 2008
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Bill Taylor
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Derek van der Kooy has a foot in two worlds and seems equally at home in both of them.
One is his regular existence and the other is seen through the lens of a microscope. It's here that he seeks a cure for Type 1 diabetes through stem-cell research.
In the real world, van der Kooy lives with Type 1 diabetes, diagnosed 37 years ago when he was 19.
The autoimmune disease destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Without the discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, it would be fatal. Their 1923 Nobel Prize—winning achievement meant diabetes could be controlled. But, 85 years later, it still has not been eradicated.
Van der Kooy, a professor in the U of T's department of biophysics, tries not to take his situation personally. "I'm not above using my diabetes when it comes to getting grants," he acknowledges cheerfully. "But it sounds so weenie to talk about it. You don't want people thinking you're only interested in solving your own problems."
His latest grant, in August, came from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Canada. Van der Kooy works on the 11th floor of the new Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, within cycling distance of his home and a stone's throw from where Banting and Best worked.
"Look at the views," says van der Kooy. "And the facilities are wonderful. Two years ago, we were stuck in the basement of the Medical Sciences Building, right next to the morgue!"
A gold ring glistens in his right ear. He's wearing shorts, fresh from playing squash – the way he likes to start his day. "I lost," he says. "I need to find older opponents. Playing students ... I have to stop thinking they're the same age as me. I can sometimes hold my own with trick shots and trash-talk, but youth will always win."
He doesn't expect an easy victory in his research, either. But, without having a timeline in mind, he's optimistic. He talks about it enthusiastically, repeatedly referring to his work as "exciting."
"That's why, if you come here at night, you'll find people still working," he says. "It's fun."
The research van der Kooy is leading involves isolating stem cells from mouse and human pancreas and trying to "convince" the cells to produce insulin. Such cells, he says, "proliferate like crazy in the lab – five or six thousand in a week. But we want them to make not just 5 per cent beta cells, but 95 or 100 per cent. How do we do this?"
The "biggest, most exciting development" in recent years has been the production by Japanese scientists in 2006 of "induced pluripotent cells" from mouse and human cells. This could be a way of circumventing the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells.
"You can make these IPCs patient-specific," van der Kooy says. "Take a person's own cell and produce beta cells. You won't entirely cure diabetes. The autoimmune destruction of beta cells will eventually take these cells, too. But you'd do quite well for a few years and then have more cells put in."
Of his own diabetes, van der Kooy says the disease was diagnosed later than it is in most people. "I did a very poor job of managing it when I was younger," he says. "A lot of kids, diagnosed at 9 or 10, are very disciplined. Then they tend to go into a spell where they neglect it. At 19, I went straight into the bad part. I'm totally disciplined now.
"I've developed kidney and eye problems as complications but that's expected at my age. Diabetes hasn't really slowed me down."
Van der Kooy doesn't use the recently developed pump, which closely monitors the blood-sugar level and dispenses insulin accordingly. "I just go with the injections," he says. "I test my blood-sugar eight or 10 times a day and inject insulin five or six times. It's easy."
Wherever his research goes, there are years of animal testing to be done before any human application could be considered. But would he ever offer himself as a guinea pig?
"Oh, I might," he says – and his eyes light up at the thought.
Toronto Star