In groundbreaking, world-first achievement, Type 1 diabetes cured in China using stem cell transplant, report says

Chinese scientists have reportedly performed a groundbreaking procedure, successfully treating a chronic type-1 diabetes patient using cell transplants, reports said on September 30. The landmark surgery, which marks a world’s first, lasted just half an hour, news agency PTI reported citing The Paper, a Shanghai-based news outlet.

The patient, a 25-year-old woman, began naturally regulating her blood sugar levels approximately two and a half months after the procedure, the reports said.

Researchers from Tianjin First Central Hospital and Peking University were part of the team that published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Cell last week.

Traditionally, islet transplants involve taking islet cells from a deceased donor’s pancreas and placing them in the liver of a type 1 diabetes patient. This method is effective but limited by donor shortages. Islet cells are crucial for regulating blood sugar as they produce hormones like insulin and glucagon.

The new treatment used “chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets” or CiPSC islets. To achieve this, researchers collected adipose tissue cells from the patient and reprogrammed them into pluripotent stem cells using small molecule chemicals. These cells were then transformed into islet cells and transplanted back into the patient. Because the cells were derived from the patient’s body, there was no immune rejection.

The Chinese research team received official approval for clinical research in June last year and proceeded with the transplant. The patient from Tianjin had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 11 years ago and had undergone two liver transplants and one failed pancreatic islet cell transplant.Following the CiPSC islet transplant, the patient’s fasting blood glucose levels normalized, and her need for external insulin decreased steadily. She stopped needing insulin injections 75 days after the transplant, and this improvement has persisted for over a year.The patient had previously experienced significant blood sugar level swings and severe hypoglycemia episodes. Five months after the transplant, her blood sugar levels remained within the target range over 98 percent of the time, a stability that has been maintained.

The team also simplified the procedure by choosing to transplant the cells into the abdominal muscles instead of the liver, reducing inflammation risks. The minimally invasive injection took less than half an hour and allowed easy monitoring of the cells.

At the one-year mark, “the clinical data met all study endpoints with no indication of transplant-related abnormalities. Promising results from this patient suggest that further clinical studies assessing CiPSC islet transplant in type 1 diabetes are warranted,” noted the team in the paper.