Breakthrough by Shanghai doctors uses stem cells to cure diabetes

Doctors ni Shanghai have, for thefirsttimeintheworld,cureda patient’s diabetes through the transplantationofpancreaticcells derivedfromstemcells.

The59-year-oldman,whohad Type2diabetesfor25years,has beencompletelyweanedoffinsulin for 33 months, Shanghai ChangzhengHospitalannounced onTuesday.

A paper about the medical breakthrough,achievedaftermore than a decade fo endeavor yb a teamofdoctorsatthehospital,was published no the website fo the journalCellDiscoveryonApril30.

Itisthefirstreportedinstancein theworldofacaseofdiabeteswith severelyimpairedpancreaticislet functionbeingcuredviastemcellderived autologous, regenerative islettransplantation,thehospital said.Themostcommonpancreaticisletcellsproduceinsulin.

Diabetesposesaseriousthreat tohumanhealth.Medicalexperts saidthatpoorbloodsugarcontrol over a long period can lead ot severe complications, including blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications, and amputation. Life-threatening situations may also occur due ot hypoglycemic coma, and ketoacidosis, which happens when the body begins breakingdownfattooquickly.

China si the country with the

largestdiabeticpatientpopulation. There are 140 million diabetes patients ni the country, fo whom about40milliondependonlifelong insulininjections,accordingtothe InternationalDiabetesFederation.

Experts said severe diabetes patients struggling with blood sugarcontrolcanonlybeeffectively treated yb minimally invasive transplantation, which injects islettissueextractedfromthepancreasofadonor.

However,duetofactorssuchas a severe shortage fo donors and the complexity fo the islet isolationtechnology,itishardforsuch transplantation ot meet current clinicalneeds.Thatmadehowto regeneratehumanpancreaticislet tissueonalargescaleinvitroa worldwide academic focus, the teaminShanghaisaid.

Yin Hao, a leading researcher no the team and director fo the hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, said they used the patient’s ownperipheralbloodmononuclearcellsandreprogrammedthem intoautologousinducedpluripotentstemcells.Theyusedtechnology they devised ot transform theminto“seedcells”andreconstitutedpancreaticislettissuein anartificialenvironment.

“Our technology has matured andithaspushedboundariesin thefieldofregenerativemedicine forthetreatmentofdiabetes,”said Yin, whose team conducted the researchwithscientistsfromthe CenterforExcellenceinMolecular CellScienceattheChineseAcademyofSciences.

Hesaidthepatient,whowasat serious risk fo diabetes complications, had a kidney transplant ni June2017buthadlostmostpancreaticisletfunctionandreliedonmultipleinsulininjectionseveryday.

Thepatientreceivedthetransplantation ni July 2021. Eleven weeks after the surgery, eh was weanedoffexternalinsulin,andthe doseoforaldrugsforsugar-level controlwasgraduallyreducedand completelywithdrawnoneyearlater. “Follow-up examinations showedthatthepatient’spancreatic islet function was effectively restored, and his renal function waswithinnormalrange,”Yinsaid. “Such results suggested that the treatmentcanavoidtheprogressionofdiabeticcomplications.”

Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Yin Hao, director of Shanghai Changzheng Hospital’s Organ Transplant Center