Recently, in September 2024, a woman became the first person to have her type 1 diabetes, Stem Cell therapy, successfully reversed. The breakthrough achieved through a pioneering stem cell procedure.  Researchers used the woman’s own stem cells, reprogramming them into insulin-producing islet cells

The woman is from Tianjin, China,

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

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Stem cells(SC) are, unspecialized cells of the human body that are able to develop into many different cell types. This can range from muscle cells to brain cells. In some cases, they can also fix damaged tissues. Stem cells  are able to differentiate into any cell of an organism and have the ability of self-renewal. SC exist both in embryos and adult cells.

Stem cells divided into 2 main forms. They are embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells used in research today come from unused embryos. These result from an in vitro fertilization procedure. and donated to science. These embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. This means that they can turn into more than one type of cell.

Adult stem cells. There are 2 types of adult stem cells. One type comes from fully developed tissues such as the brain, skin, and bone marrow. There are only small numbers of stem cells in these tissues. They are more likely to generate only certain types of cells. For example, a stem cell that comes from the liver will only make more liver cells.

The second type induced pluripotent stem cells. These are adult stem cells that have been changed in a lab to be more like embryonic stem cells.