By Michael Irving – New Atlas –
A patient with type 1 diabetes has been functionally cured of the disease, requiring no insulin doses for over a year. The treatment involves growing and transplanting new insulin-producing cells from the patient’s own stem cells.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the patient’s immune system attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. This means patients become unable to manage their blood glucose levels and require regular injections of insulin.
Now, early results from a phase I clinical trial suggest that replacing those lost insulin-producing cells with new ones could be a viable treatment. The first patient to receive this kind of transplant has now been insulin-independent for over a year, the team says.
