Most people don’t think about their blood sugar before enjoying a meal, dessert, or bike ride. But for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D), every minute and every action revolves around the number on a glucose meter.
Normally, the pancreas’s beta cells produce insulin to keep blood sugar in a healthy range. In T1D, the immune system destroys these beta cells, reducing or eliminating insulin production and disrupting blood sugar control. Chronic high blood sugar can lead to blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, and even death.
People with T1D manage the disease by injecting insulin two to four times a day. A light workout, a small dietary change, or even excitement can trigger blood sugar swings that require another glucose check and another injection.
A different approach
Clinical trials are testing pancreatic islet transplants. These clusters of cells include healthy beta cells. However, these rely on donor pancreases and require lifelong immunosuppressive drugs.
But what if we could produce healthy beta cells in the lab without needing a transplant?
Dr. Matthias Hebrok director of the UCSF Diabetes Center, and Dr. Gopika Nair, a postdoctoral fellow, discovered how to transform human stem cells into healthy, insulin‑producing beta 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,” Dr. Hebrok said. “This is a critical step toward creating cells that could be transplanted into patients with diabetes.”
The breakthrough
For years, scientists could produce only immature cells that couldn’t sense blood sugar or secrete insulin properly. Dr. Hebrok and Dr. Nair discovered that mimicking the pancreas’s natural islet structure helped the cells mature. When transplanted into mice, these cells became fully functional, producing insulin and responding to changes in blood sugar.
Dr. Hebrok’s team is now working with colleagues to make these cells suitable for patient transplantation.
Gopika Nair, PhD, the postdoctoral fellow who led the study, appears in the photo courtesy of UCSF.
In the article, Dr. Nair notes, “Current therapeutics like insulin injections only treat the symptoms of the disease. Our work points to several exciting avenues to finally finding a cure.”
“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.”
Dr. Hebrok, who is also a member of the CIRM funded UCSF Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, was senior author of the new study, which was published February 1, 2019 in Nature Cell Biology.
CIRM has funded three separate human clinical trials for T1D that total approximately $37.8 million in awards. Two of these trials are being conducted by ViaCyte, Inc. and the third trial is being conducted by Caladrius Biosciences.
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In 1994 I had gallstones that went into the ducked of the pancreas. They pancreas did it’s job and digested the stones but also digested the pancreas. I had to stay in kootenai hospital for 4 months. They removed the gallbladder, pancreas and part of the digestive track. That left me a type 1 diabetic.
I saved stem cells from our last birth and have three adult children with #T1D. Hopeful!
I have type 1 diabetes for 55 years. I hope this research can help with this disease.
Hello, I just read your comment about having Type 1 for 55 years … wow. I am approaching 48 years with it, I am 66. What a ride it has been, huh? I am seriously praying for the cure. I wish you the best!
Hello, Tommy.
I also have Type 1 diabetes for 58 years and was fine until age 39 … it’s such a long story. Stay strong!
Kathleen Bose
how would someone become a test subject for this program.me and my 7 year old daughter have type one diabetes so i would volanteere for trial purpose if needed hoping it would lead to a cure for my daughter before she gets all tje complications that come with this disease.thank you
Hi Robert, right now this is still in the discovery stage and it may be some time before it is ready for testing in people.
I am slowly getting fed up with these discoveries done on mice all these donkey years. Why not keep it to yourselves and only report when successful on human beings?
I became a type one at age 40, and have been a guinea pig for 7 yrs now, would love to be part of this research
My name is Robert Munro . I have had T1D for 28 years . I am 58 .I had to close my moving company. Eye sight problems . foot infections to name a few .I would be willing to take part in clinical trials.I feel like some one will listen.
My wife lost half her pancreas in 2006 – it liquified from high triglycerides. Has been on insulin ever since (type II, but taking R500 insulin – five times concentrated). Has steroid injections in her eyes every other month. I would love to hear how her EPCs could be used to treat her retinopathy, and also this study could help heal her pancreas.
How long before a cure .Why is a cure taking so long. People are suffering antirejection drugs. really.lets get the new cure. .