SAN FRANCISO, Cali. (WTXL) - Scientists could be one step closer to curing Type 1 diabetes after reaching a "major breakthrough" with human stem cells.
Researchers at the University of San Francisco are touting the development as a "major breakthrough" in the effort to cure Type 1 diabetes.
According to University of California San Francisco, researchers have, for the first time, transformed human stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells.
“We can now generate insulin-producing cells that look and act a lot like the pancreatic beta cells you and I have in our bodies. This is a critical step towards our goal of creating cells that could be transplanted into patients with diabetes,” said Matthias Hebrok, PhD, the Hurlbut-Johnson Distinguished Professor in Diabetes Research at UCSF and director of the UCSF Diabetes Center.
Researchers say they transformed pancreatic stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells and transplanted them into healthy mice. To their surprise, the cells were functional within a few days, producing insulin in response to blood sugar.
“Current therapeutics like insulin injections only treat the symptoms of the disease,” Gopika Nair, PhD said. “Our work points to several exciting avenues to finally finding a cure.”
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder that destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, typically in childhood. The condition can be managed by taking regular shots of insulin that regulates that body's glucose levels. However, patients still often experience serious health consequences like kidney failure, heart disease and stroke.
With this breakthrough, researchers are hoping to make these cells transplantable into patients without the need for immune-suppressing drugs.
“We’re finally able to move forward on a number of different fronts that were previously closed to us,” Hebrok added. “The possibilities seem endless.”
You can read more about the research here.
