Stem cells and type 1 diabetes, the incredible results on a 25 year old

For the first time in the world a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells it ‘eliminated’ type 1 diabetes in a 25-year-old woman from Tianjing who started producing insulin on his own less than 3 months after surgery. These are the results of the Chinese study by the Research Institute of Transplant Medicine, Organ Transplant Center of the Tianjin First Central Hospital published in ‘Cell’. Finally “now I can eat sugar”, the woman said in an interview with ‘Nature’. The clinical study reported preliminary results one year after autologous stem cell transplant, taken from the abdomen. The cells were chemically reprogrammed and were grown as pancreatic ‘Beta’ cells. Once mature, they were inserted into the girl’s liver and began to respond to physiological signals, such as blood sugar.

James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, explained to ‘Nature’ that the “results of the operation are surprising” and the researchers “have completely reversed the diabetes in the patientwhich previously required considerable quantities of insulin”. The study, published today in ‘Cell’, follows the results of another group of researchers, who in Shanghai – in April – reported having successfully transplanted insulin-producing islets into liver of a 59 year old man with type 2 diabetes. So there is great excitement on this frontier of stem cells.

“In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks pancreatic islet cells,” the study highlights. “Islet transplants can cure the disease, but there are not enough donors to meet the growing demand and recipients must use immunosuppressive drugs to prevent the body from rejecting the donor tissue. As known, however, stem cells can be used to grow any tissue in the body and can be grown indefinitely in the laboratory, which means they potentially offer an unlimited source of pancreatic tissue using tissue made from a person’s cells, researchers also hope to avoid the need for immunosuppressants.”

In the study published in ‘Cell’, “the patient achieved prolonged independence from insulin starting 75 days after the transplant”, highlight the researchers from the Tianjin First Central Hospital. The patient’s target glycemic range “increased from a baseline value of 43.18% to 96.21% by the fourth month post-transplant, accompanied by a decrease in glycated hemoglobin.”