Stem cell transplant reverses diabetes, this is the first case in the world – Health Care – Ansa.it

A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes began producing her own insulin less than three months after receiving a reprogramming stem cell transplant. He is the first person with this disease to be treated with cells taken from his body, brought back and then matured into pancreatic cells. The results are published in the journal Cell and the woman, who lives in Tianjing, interviewed by Nature said: “More than a year has passed since the transplant” and “now I can eat sugar”.

There are still very few trials using stem cells to treat diabetes, a disease that affects around half a billion people worldwide. In those who suffer from diabetes type 1, in particular, the immune system attacks the islet cells of the pancreas.

In the experiment, the research group led by Deng Hongkui, a cell biologist at Peking University in Beijing, took cells out of three people with type 1 diabetes and returned them to a multipotent state. Once they are back in this undifferentiated state, from which cells can develop in any direction, pancreatic islets are formed.

In June 2023, in an operation that lasted less than half an hour, researchers inserted the equivalent of approximately 1.5 million reprogrammed cells into the woman’s abdominal muscles. Two and a half months later the woman was making enough insulin to live without the need for the drug and without the dangerous changes in blood glucose levels. The results of the other two involved in the trial will be available in November. Based on the results, the trials can be extended to other people.