Researchers in China has reverse type 1 diabetes by converting a woman’s own fat cells into insulin-producing cells. Led by Dr. Hongkui Deng at the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences at Peking University, the team is report to create new insulin-producing pancreatic cells that freed her from needing insulin injections for more than a year.
This promising result, publish in the journal Cell, has spark new possibilities for long-term diabetes treatment.
As per a report, the team extract fat cells from a woman with type 1 diabetes and chemically revert these cells to a highly adaptable, stem-like state.
Then, using a series of lab techniques, the team reportedly convert them into insulin-producing islet cells, which are usually find in the pancreas.
The report further mention that these reprogram cells were implante in patient’s abdomen, where they began producing insulin to stabilise the blood sugar.
This report mentions that withing 75 days, the patient no longer need insulin injections.
This offers a fresh perspective on diabetes management and can be an alternative to conventional islet cell transplants.
While islet transplants have shown success, they depend on scarce organ donations and require lifelong immunosuppressants, which limits their availability.
But, the report mentions that this stem cell approach could produce an almost unlimited supply of cells.
One obstacle for broadening this treatment is developing a way to protect these cells from immune attacks without relying on strong immune-suppressing drugs.
Dr. Herold point out that expanding the treatment’s availability would mean finding methods to keep transplant cells from being destroy by the immune system.
While, other biotech groups, such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals, are pursuing similar strategies, using lab-grown cells to balance blood sugar levels in diabetic patients without needing donor organs.
