A team of medical researchers affiliated with a large number of institutions in China has functionally cured a female patient with type 1 diabetes by injecting her with programmed stem cells.
Over the past decade, research revolving around stem cells has advanced dramatically.
In this new study, the researchers used them to replace pancreatic islets lost to an immune response gone wrong, resulting in type 1 diabetes.
In this new effort, the researchers collected cells from three type 1 diabetes patients—all the cells were reverted to a pluripotent state and then programmed to grow into pancreatic islets.
Two and a half months later, testing showed the patient was producing enough of her own insulin to stop injections.
Through the use of programmed stem cells, a group of medical researchers connected to numerous Chinese institutions has successfully treated a female patient with type 1 diabetes.
The team took cells from the patient, turned them back into pluripotent stem cells, engineered them to develop into pancreatic islets, and then reinjected the stem cells back into the patient’s abdomen for their study, which was published in the journal Cell.
Research on stem cells has come a long way in the last ten years. They have been programmed by scientists to become biological tissue, organoids, and organs. Additionally, illnesses like sickle cell disease and muscle damage have been treated with them. In this latest study, they were utilized to replace pancreatic islets that were lost due to an improperly handled immune response, which caused type 1 diabetes.
The pancreatic islets that produce insulin are destroyed in certain individuals due to an immune response that occurs for unclear reasons. Juvenile diabetes is another name for the illness since these events usually occur in adolescence.
Any treatment for the condition must replace the destroyed islets in some way. This can be done by either transplanting a donor’s islets into the patient or, in this new example, by starting with the patient’s own cells to create pluripotent stem cells that can be genetically engineered to develop into new islets.
Three patients with type 1 diabetes provided cells for this new endeavor; all of the cells were pluripotently restored and then genetically engineered to develop into pancreatic islets. By subjecting the cells to specific molecules instead of proteins, the researchers altered the conventional method, as stated by the researchers. In order to apply the first patient’s findings to the second and subsequently the third, the patients’ treatment regimens were staggered over time.
The first patient, a 25-year-old woman, had her abdomen injected with 1.5 million of the islets the researchers had grown in a procedure that took about 30 minutes. Because they were in the abdomen, it was simple to monitor and remove them if needed. Testing conducted 2.5 months later revealed the patient was making enough insulin on her own to no longer need injections.
She was still making her own insulin a year later. The patient’s prior liver transplant has already required her to take immunosuppressive medications, as noted by the research team. As a result, it is still unknown if the patient’s immune system will mount the same kind of defense that initially caused her to develop type 1 diabetes.
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