(Press-News.org) Type 1 diabetes is caused by an insufficient production of the hormone insulin by cells in the pancreas called beta cells and estimated to affect 9.5 million people worldwide. Low insulin levels allow glucose levels to remain elevated, which in the long term can damage organs such as the kidneys, the eyes, and the cardiovascular system. People with diabetes require lifelong monitoring of blood sugar levels coupled with insulin injections to keep blood sugar levels at a stable, healthy level.
A potential new treatment option for those patients is the replacement of lost or dysfunctional pancreatic beta cells, either by cell transplantation, or by the generation of new beta cells from existing cells within the body. This latter strategy was pursued by the team of Xiaofeng Huang from Weill Cornell Medicine, USA and Qing Xia from Peking University, China who previously discovered that cells in the mouse stomach can be transformed into pancreatic beta cells by genetic engineering.
In their work published today in the journal Stem Cell Reports, the researchers now tested if the same can be done with human stomach within the body. To test this, the researchers started off by making human stomach organoids, microscopic structures that model aspects of a normal stomach function. The stomach organoids were genetically engineered so that they could be transformed into pancreatic beta cells upon turning on a “genetic switch.” The stomach organoids were then transplanted into the abdominal region of mice where they survived and matured for up to six months and established connections with the surrounding tissues and the blood system. Upon turning on the “genetic switch,” the human stomach cells were converted to insulin secreting cells within the mice and resembled pancreatic beta cells with respect to gene and protein expression. Encouragingly, when those experiments were done with diabetic mice, insulin secreted from the transformed human cells helped control blood sugar levels and ameliorated diabetes. The scientists hope that a similar approach can be taken to convert cells from a patient’s own stomach into insulin secreting cells directly within the body. Importantly, additional studies are needed to address if this approach is safe and effective to be used in patients.
About Stem Cell Reports
Stem Cell Reports is the open access, peer-reviewed journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) for communicating basic discoveries in stem cell research, in addition to translational and clinical studies. Stem Cell Reports focuses on original research with conceptual or practical advances that are of broad interest to stem cell biologists and clinicians. Stem Cell Reports is a Cell Press partner journal. Find the journal on X: @StemCellReports.
About ISSCR
With nearly 5,000 members from more than 80 countries, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (@ISSCR) is the preeminent global, cross-disciplinary, science-based organization dedicated to stem cell research and its translation to the clinic. The ISSCR mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health.
END
Human stomach cells tweaked to make insulin to treat diabetes
2025-11-06
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Archaeology: Digital map increases Roman Empire road network by 100,000 kilometers
2025-11-06
A new high resolution digital dataset and map — named Itiner-e — of roads throughout the Roman Empire around the year 150 CE is presented in research published in Scientific Data. The findings increase the known length of the Empire’s road system by over 100,000 kilometres.
At its height in the second century CE, the Roman Empire included over 55 million people and stretched from modern day Britain to Egypt and Syria. Although a network of roads throughout the Empire facilitated ...
Informal human milk sharing among US mothers
2025-11-06
About The Study: In this large, diverse sample of first-time mothers in the U.S., 1 in 27 participants reported feeding their infants shared human milk. Prior work indicates that families engage in many, but not all, recommended milk sharing risk mitigation measures and fear disclosing their milk sharing to practitioners. Given the prevalence in this study, pediatric practitioners should be aware that milk sharing occurs across demographics; they can counsel families considering or using shared milk on risks and risk-reduction strategies ...
Non-prescription pain meds work equally well for men and women after tooth extraction
2025-11-06
Over-the-counter pain medications work as well or better than opioids after wisdom tooth extraction for both men and women, according to a Rutgers Health-led follow-up to a landmark paper on comparative pain relief.
That first paper on the collective experience of more than 1,800 trial patients found that the combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen provided better pain relief than hydrocodone with acetaminophen for the first two days after surgery and greater satisfaction over the post-operative period. The new subgroup analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, demonstrated that the results held for both ...
Mifepristone access through community pharmacies when regulated as a routine prescription medication
2025-11-06
About The Study: The results of this study of pharmacies in British Columbia, Canada, suggest that when medication abortion is available as a routine health service and mifepristone is regulated as a routine prescription, pharmacists play a key role in providing geographically distributed access to medication abortion. These findings may inform policy and initiatives to enhance pharmacist referral networks and improve mifepristone access, as well as service planning for international jurisdictions considering a similar medication abortion ...
UBC study shows good B.C. abortion pill access, but gaps remain
2025-11-06
Most pharmacies in British Columbia can provide the abortion pill mifepristone within days, but uneven access still leaves some women facing barriers to this time-sensitive medication, according to new research.
The study, published Nov. 6 in JAMA Network Open, offers the first province-wide look at pharmacy-level access to mifepristone in B.C.
Mifepristone is used for medical abortions and can be prescribed across Canada by any physician or nurse practitioner and filled at community pharmacies. Initially available only from pharmacists who had completed a training module and pharmacies registered with the manufacturer, Health Canada removed these requirements ...
Researchers find that adaptive music technologies enhance exercise engagement and enjoyment
2025-11-06
Researchers from University of Jyväskylä have found that personalized interactive music systems – smart technologies that adapt rhythm and tempo to users’ movements – can make exercise more enjoyable and help people stay active longer.
These systems, known as PIMSs, use real-time data from wearables and smartphones to adjust musical features such as beat, tempo, and style to match the user’s pace – whether walking, cycling or lifting weights.
For example, when the systems detects you speeding up, it raises the music’s tempo to match your ...
Meditation retreat rapidly reprograms body and mind
2025-11-06
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have found that an intensive retreat combining multiple mind-body techniques, including meditation and healing practices, produced rapid and wide-ranging changes in brain function and blood biology. The researchers found that the retreat engaged natural physiological pathways promoting neuroplasticity, metabolism, immunity and pain relief. The findings, published in Communications Biology, provide insights into how consciousness and psychological practices can enhance physical health.
Meditation and other mind-body practices ...
Biohub launches first large-scale scientific initiative combining Frontier AI with Frontier Biology to cure or prevent disease
2025-11-06
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind initiative combining frontier artificial intelligence and frontier biology to dramatically accelerate scientific progress toward understanding and addressing human disease.
Since its founding in 2016, Biohub’s multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers have developed groundbreaking technologies to observe, measure, and program biology at the cellular level. The organization has built the largest single-cell datasets and established large-scale compute ...
High-impact clinical trials generate promising results for improving kidney health - part 1
2025-11-06
The nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist finerenone has been shown to reduce the risks of major clinical kidney and cardiovascular outcomes in individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and type 2 diabetes. In the phase 3 FINE-ONE trial, investigators assessed the efficacy and safety of finerenone in people with CKD and type 1 diabetes, a patient population that has not had new therapies in the last 30 years. FINE-ONE randomized 242 patients to finerenone or placebo. “The study used albuminuria change over 6 months of treatment as endpoint and bridging biomarker to translate evidence of long-term kidney protective effects from type 2 diabetes and CKD ...
New hope for treating kidney disease in type 1 diabetes
2025-11-06
The drug finerenone has a positive effect on patients with type 1 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. The drug reduces the amount of proteins excreted in the urine of these patients. This reduction indicates that the degree of kidney damage is reduced and that the drug has a protective effect on kidney function.
Clinical pharmacologist Hiddo Lambers Heerspink of the UMCG led a large international study into the effect of this drug. He will present the initial results of this study at the American Society of Nephrology conference in Houston, where he will present the results during the plenary ...