Breakthrough in human induced pluripotent stem cell research of a functional cure for type 1 diabetes

Diabetes is a major disease that threatens human health worldwide, resulting in various complications and a shorter expected lifespan. Although type 1 diabetes (T1D) has historically been considered a disease that develops in childhood, more adults are diagnosed than children and adolescents. Curing diabetes is a goal for patients, clinicians, and researchers.

Very recently, research groups from Tianjin First Central Hospital, Peking University, and the China Changping Laboratory collaborated to publish a paper in Cell, reporting for the first time a clinical study of transplanting chemically induced pluripotent stem cell (CiPSC)-derived islet cells under the abdominal anterior rectus sheath to treat T1D.1 This is an exciting study and a milestone in the field of T1D treatment. This study focused on a 25-year-old woman who was diagnosed with T1D 11 years ago and could not effectively control her blood sugar levels even under intensive insulin therapy. She received treatment with autologous CiPSC-islet transplantation and regained endogenous insulin-independent glycemic control. All safety and efficacy clinical endpoints were met at the 1-year follow-up. These results demonstrated that CiPSC-derived islet cell therapy achieved a clinical functional cure for T1D.

Diabetes is a complex disease caused by the failure or inefficiency of islet beta cells, resulting in insufficient insulin secretion. Restoring beta cell function can help reduce the need for frequent glucose monitoring and insulin injections in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. With decades of effort, several key technologies in stem cell-derived islet cell therapy have been developed for application to clinical practice.2,3 These advances mainly cover four aspects.