An Australian scientist's radical therapeutic treatment for diabetes - using insulin-producing pig cells - could resume clinical trials within the next few months.
But the groundbreaking work is being carried out across the Tasman because until 2009, Australia has a moratorium on xenotransplantation, the use of living animal cells to treat humans.
It is hard to imagine a more isolated and inhospitable place on earth than the Auckland Islands, a cluster of rocky outcrops nearly 500 kilometres south of the New Zealand mainland.
In the 19th century, they were settled sporadically by sealers and whalers who first introduced pigs for food.
Xenotransplant recipient Michael Helyer says they were left on the island for shipwrecked sailors who might need food.
"It was common practice then for ships to let them off, but they were just untouched for 200 years, no human contact, and they've done very well in the bleak conditions, and they're virtually pathogen free," he said.
Once scientists established their pristine health status in the 1990s, these pigs went from being pests in a national park to being very precious little porkers indeed.
Which explains why so much care was taken tracking them down, then transferring them to their new home on the mainland, to be part of pioneering medical research, known as pig cell therapy.
Mr Helyer is amongst an estimated 200,000 type 1 diabetics in Australasia, still balancing blood sugar levels with daily insulin treatment designed back in the 1920s.
Twelve years ago he took part in clinical trials devised by expatriate Australian paediatrician, Professor Bob Elliott, where cells from the offspring of those island pigs were implanted into his pancreas to mimic the body's natural production of insulin.
Professor Elliott, of Living Cell Technologies (LCT) says the treatment does not cure diabetes.
"At best, we might be able to get people right off insulin permanently," he said.
"Or probably a more likely outcome is that we can provide cells which can provide insulin on demand, switch on and off as the body needs it."
Mr Helyer says he had an almost immediate reduction in on-board insulin of 30 per cent.
"Which made a vast difference to my control. It just made things so easy, and easy to get good management," he said.
Moratorium
However, concern that this treatment could result in the transmission of a particular virus from pigs to humans caused authorities here to suspend clinical trials, but Professor Elliott says Australia went even further.
"Australia put a moratorium on about three years ago on xenotransplantation of any sort while the field settled down," he said.
"I think the field has settled down now, and subject to some very strict rules about where the pigs come from and where they test and so on, I think it's now probably not reasonable to keep that moratorium on."
In the interim, Professor Elliott's Auckland-based research team and their business partners pressed on, establishing a quarantine facility for their breeding herd, as well as a manufacturing facility for the pig cells, and a troubleshooting laboratory.
Dr Paul Tan says he knows of no other group that has brought together those three elements.
"And you need not one, but all three, to be able to start clinical trials, never mind commercialising the treatment when the time comes," he said.
Dr Stewart Jessamine from the New Zealand Ministry of Health says there a still a couple of studies that need to be completed before it can be determined whether or not LCT has made a breakthrough in the treatment of diabetes.
"But it's certainly a sign that the technology is advancing," he said.
The company has satisfied a scientific panel that its study is safe. Now it needs approval from a research ethics panel, then the Health Minister, before clinical trials can resume.
Dr Jessamine says science has moved on and more is understood about xenotransplantation than was when they first looked at the study five or six years ago.
Professor Elliott says if New Zealand follows the lead of the US and Europe, treatment might be available in a few years time.
Mr Helyer says he is prepared to again put his faith in the professor and the healing power of his pigs.
"Pig insulin kept me alive in the early days of my diabetes, it saved my life, so I've got nothing against pig insulin," he said.
"OK, there have been some potential risks that had to be looked at, and they've been well and truly looked at.
"We've got to balance that with the certain risks of having diabetes and having it long-term.
"We know what it does to the human body long-term, and that's more than a risk, it's a proven certainty. So, I think the time is to proceed." © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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