The findings from a study at the University of Geneva, co-funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, that is published in the online edition of the scientific journal Nature, led by Dr. Pedro L. Herrera, raises hope for type 1 diabetes patients of possible regeneration of their insulin producing beta cells.

     The study done in mice demonstrated that beta cells will spontaneously regenerate after near-total beta cell destruction and the majority of the regenerated beta cells are derived from alpha cells that had been reprogrammed and converted into beta cells. Using a unique model of diabetes in mice, in which nearly all of the beta cells are rapidly destroyed, the researchers found that if the mice were kept on insulin therapy, beta cells were slowly and spontaneously restored, eliminating the need for insulin replacement in due course of time.

     Type 1 diabetes is a chronic, autoimmune disease that affects children, adolescents and adults, in which the immune system attacks the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, a hormone that enables people to convert food into energy. People with type 1 diabetes are dependent on insulin treatment for the rest of their life.

     Alpha cells normally reside alongside beta cells in the pancreas and secrete a hormone called glucagon, which works opposite to insulin to regulate the levels of sugar in the blood. Alpha cells are not attacked by the autoimmune processes that destroy beta cells and causes type 1 diabetes.

     Such inter-endocrine spontaneous adult cell conversion could be used towards methods of producing β-cells for diabetes therapies, either in differentiation settings in vitro or in induced regeneration.