12 December 2025
Cell transplant therapy offers new hope for type 1 diabetes
Scientists have successfully transplanted gene-edited insulin-producing cells into a man with type 1 diabetes — enabling him to make some of his own insulin without immunosuppressants.
This video is part of “Innovation: Type 1 Diabetes,” an editorially independent special report produced with the financial support of pinnacle,
Karin Leong: What if people with type 1 diabetes could start making their own insulin?
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Scientists have taken a big step in this direction. They treated one patient with 80 million lab-made insulin-producing cells, which are designed to hide from the immune system. This is the first time that such a cell transplant has not caused rejection in a human, and researchers say it opens up exciting possibilities for the treatment of diabetes and other autoimmune diseases in the future.
Approximately two million people in the US currently suffer from type 1 diabetes. It is an autoimmune disease where the body mistakenly destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without this hormone, people have to rely on injections and pumps every day to keep their blood sugar under control and avoid serious complications.
Scientists have tried to replace these insulin-producing cells before, but the body kept attacking them. And patients will need to take strong immune-suppressing drugs for life, which come with their own laundry list of side effects.
This time, researchers took donor cells and used the gene-editing technique CRISPR to disable two genes that normally prime the immune system to attack foreign cells, while also promoting the expression of a gene that discourages attacks by the body’s immune cells.
So 12 weeks after these cells were injected into the patient, they were still alive and making insulin in his body. Granted, it wasn’t a ton — about 7 percent of what he would need to give up insulin injections altogether. But experts say it’s a big milestone for his body to be producing even a little bit of insulin on its own and, most importantly, without the need for immunosuppressants. They will continue to monitor her over the next year and test higher doses of these edited cells. And if all goes well, it could potentially lead us to a cure for type 1 diabetes.
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