The landmark 1997 effort that cloned Dolly the sheep kicked off innovations in stem cell reprogramming technology and inspired Hongkui Deng, then finishing his postdoctoral fellowship at NYU, to start tinkering with ways to generate insulin-producing beta cells from stem cells.
Now Deng, a professor of cell biology at Peking University, is pioneering a first-of-its-kind human diabetes trial. Patients with diabetes can no longer produce insulin, and require insulin injections or an insulin pump to help regulate blood sugar. Deng and his colleagues have devised a way to transform a patient’s own fat cells to be able to produce insulin. Deng modified a technique developed by Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka that can turn a person’s extracted fat or skin cells into stem cells that can be reprogrammed into insulin-producing cells. The cells are then transplanted back into the patient’s abdomen, enabling their body to self-regulate blood sugar. Instead of genetic engineering, Deng’s method uses small molecules to chemically reprogram stem cells, which he says allows for more precise control over the cell transformation process.
A study published in October in the journal Cell showed exciting early results: a 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes began producing her own insulin again, restoring normal blood sugar levels a few months after undergoing this procedure in June 2023. She has not had to receive insulin injections in nearly two years. The two other patients in the trial have also been insulin-independent for more than a year. “It's maintained very nicely. We call that functional cure,” Deng says. “We are getting very close to using this similar strategy in the future for liver failure.”