“Stem cells are an extremely promising approach for developing many cell therapies, including better treatments for type 1 diabetes,” says Salk Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, the paper’s senior author.
The investigators started with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) having the potential to become any kind of cell found in the adult body coaxed into beta cells in a stepwise fashion that mimicked pancreatic development using various growth factors and chemicals resulted in about 10 to 40 percent of cells becoming beta cells.
The created beta cells were transplanted into a mouse model of type 1 diabetes with a modified immune system that would not reject transplanted human cells reduced their high blood sugar level to normal range.
This finding represents that the transplanted hPSC-derived beta cells were biologically functional needs more clinical trials to assess the safety before initiating in humans for treating type 1 diabetes.
Source: Medindia
