Taste bud transplant to treat type 1 diabetes

SCIENTISTS are testing whether taste buds will be able to help treat type 1 diabetes.

Taste buds contain stem cells — master cells that can develop into other forms of cells.

Researchers at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, in the U.S., hope to turn them into insulin-producing cells (type 1 diabetes is caused when not enough insulin is produced).

In a study of 90 people, they will take biopsies of tissue about the size of a pen-tip from the end and sides of the tongue.

These will then be treated in the laboratory to see if the stem cells can be propagated to make insulin.