Diabetes is, at its core, a shortage of working insulin-producing beta cells. Researchers have found a surprisingly simple way to make new ones: flip off a single gene in another type of pancreatic cell.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and the Joslin Diabetes Center, led by Peng Yi, used a genome-wide CRISPR screen to find genes controlling cell identity, and discovered that disabling the ALDH3B2 gene converts human pancreatic duct cells into functional, glucose-responsive beta-like cells. Losing that gene switches on the insulin gene and shifts the cell’s program toward a beta-cell state. The findings appeared in Science Translational Medicine.
What it did in animals
When the transformed human cells were transplanted into diabetic mice (under the kidney capsule), they lowered blood glucose to near-normal for about six weeks and showed strongly increased beta-cell marker genes.
Why it matters — and the caveat
A way to regenerate beta cells from a patient’s own pancreatic cells could help both type 1 diabetes (where the immune system destroys beta cells) and type 2 (where they falter). But there’s work to do: the converted cells produced much less insulin than natural beta cells when stimulated by glucose, so the approach needs optimization before any clinical use. It’s a promising proof of concept, not a therapy yet.