SYDNEY (ANI) -- Australian researchers say tiny seaweed "bubbles" injected into the body along with insulin-producing cells may revolutionize treatment for type 1 diabetes.

Professor Bernie Tuch of the University of New South Wales in Sydney has tested the procedure on one patient, believed to be only the third in the world to have the experimental operation. So far scientists have been able to perform beta cell transplantation, but the immune system sees them as intruders and kills them, but now they have found the way to keep the transplanted cells producing insulin without generating the autoimmune response that would kill them.

The procedure involves doctors injecting around 200,000 insulin- producing cells, called islets, from a dead donor into the patient's abdomen. Also injected are tiny alginate capsules, about 0.3 mm in diameter and made from seaweed, which protect the islets from being destroyed by the body's immune system. The capsules have tiny pores on the surface that allow nutrients to come in but are too small to allow the entrance of the immune cells that would destroy them.

"These capsules have pores, or little holes on their surface, small enough to block immune cells getting in to destroy the islets ... but large enough to allow the entry of nutrients such as oxygen, glucose and so forth," AAP quoted Tuch as saying.

He described the process of getting the islets inside the capsules, as something like blowing bubbles. "You take the alginate, the cells and air. You blow the air, the alginate and the cells together and what you get is like blowing soap bubbles," said Prof Tuch. Researchers feel that if this process is successfully replicated in many patients, the person with type 1 diabetes doesn't have to take anti-rejection drugs, which may cause serious side effects. In addition, the patient produces insulin from these capsules, perhaps eliminating their need to take insulin.(ANI)