A team of medical researchers affiliated with numerous institutions in China functionally cured a patient with type 1 diabetes by injecting her with programmed stem cells.
A new hope for patients with type 1 diabetes
For the study published in the journal Cellthe team extracted cells from the patient, returned them to a pluripotent state, programmed them to turn into pancreatic islets, and then injected them back into the abdomen.
Over the past decade, research surrounding stem cells has made great progress. Scientists have programmed them to become organoids, biological organs and tissues. They have also been used to treat conditions including muscle damage and sickle cell anemia. In this new study, the researchers used them to replace pancreatic islets lost due to an immune response gone awry, resulting in type 1 diabetes.
For unknown reasons, some people experience an immune attack that causes destruction of the pancreatic islets responsible for producing insulin. These incidents usually occur during adolescence, which is why the disease is also known as juvenile diabetes.
Because the islets are destroyed, any cure for the disease must involve replacing them in some way, either through transplantation from a donor or, in this new example, using the subject’s own cells as the basis to create pluripotent stem cells, which can be programmed to grow and transform into replacement islets.
In this new effort, the researchers collected cells from three patients with type 1 diabetes: all cells were returned to a pluripotent state and then programmed to grow into pancreatic islets. The researchers noted that they modified the standard approach by exposing cells to certain molecules rather than introducing proteins. The treatment process for patients was staggered over time so that the results of the first patient could be applied to the second and then the third.
In a procedure that lasted about 30 minutes, the researchers injected 1.5 million islets they had grown into the abdomen of the first patient, a 25-year-old woman. Placing them in the abdomen allowed for easy monitoring and removal if necessary. Two and a half months later, tests showed the patient was producing enough insulin to stop the injections.
After a year, he was still producing his insulin. The research team notes that the patient was already taking immunosuppressive drugs due to a previous liver transplant; therefore, it is not yet known whether her immune system will replicate the type of attack that led to her having type 1 diabetes in the first place.
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