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Chinese experts have made a major breakthrough in using regenerative medicine to treat diabetes and successfully recreated pancreatic islet tissue in vitro. This technology has become mature.

According to China News Service's report on May 7, 2024, the research results obtained by Professor Yin Hao's team from the Second Affiliated Hospital of the Naval Medical University (Shanghai Changzheng Hospital) and Professor Cheng Xin's team from the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences were published online in the latest An issue of the authoritative magazine Cell Discovery.

Clinical experts used autologous regenerated islet transplantation derived from stem cells to successfully cure a diabetic patient with severely impaired islet function. The 59-year-old patient, who had a 25-year history of type 2 diabetes and developed uremia, had near-failure of pancreatic islet function and required multiple insulin injections every day. After receiving the transplant, the patient has now been completely insulin-free for 33 months.

There are a large number of people with diabetes in China, and all type 1 and about 30% of type 2 diabetes patients require lifelong dependence on insulin injection treatment. Severe patients with difficult to control blood sugar can only be effectively treated through transplantation therapy in which islet tissue is extracted from a donated pancreas and injected minimally to avoid the progression of complications. Due to factors such as the severe shortage of donors and the complexity of islet isolation technology, it is difficult to meet current clinical needs. Therefore, how to regenerate human islet tissue on a large scale in vitro has become a worldwide academic problem.

Yin Hao said that in the future, the research team will focus on research related to regenerated islet tissue derived from stem cells, further develop "universal" regenerated islet tissue that does not require immunosuppression, and provide new curative therapies for the majority of diabetic patients who rely on insulin injections for a long time.