Diabetes News: Reprogramming Stomach Cells to Produce Insulin

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Facebook Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window)Bluesky Share on X (Opens in new window)X Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard Save 0 Comments Add Daily Kos to Google There are something like 9.5 million people worldwide suffering from Type 1 Diabetes, in which the immune system kills insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas. We have looked in this series at several ways of implanting beta cells within the body in ways protected from the immune system. Now we have the possibility of overwhelming these immune system attacks with cells other than beta cells that either generate insulin naturally, or are reprogrammed to generate insulin, cells that reproduce in vast quantities in the stomach or intestines.

Reprogrammed Human Stomach Organoids Secrete #InsulinTransplanting human gastric organoids engineered to release insulin in diabetic mice reduced #hyperglycemia, offering a therapeutic avenue for #type1diabetes#Health #Science

Now, researchers led by Xiaofeng Huang, a molecular biologist at Weill Cornell Medical College, engineered human stomach organoids to secrete insulin. Transplanting these into diabetic mice reduced hyperglycemia.2 Their findings, published today in Stem Cell Reports, could help develop technologies to engineer a person’s own insulin-secreting cells for diabetes treatment.

Researchers had previously reprogrammed cells in the mouse stomach and intestine into insulin-producing pancreatic beta-like cells.3,4 Building upon this, Huang and others in the field differentiated human gastric stem cells in vitro into gastric insulin-secreting cells resembling pancreatic beta cells.5 The researchers sought to further explore whether human gastric cells in a complex in vivo environment could similarly differentiate into insulin-secreting cells.

Stem Cell Reports: Volume 20, Issue 12 December 09, 2025 Open access

New #organoid research shows transplanted human stomach organoids can induce gastric insulin-secreting cells in vivo. Potential for future therapeutic development using this technology for insulin-dependent #diabetes. https://ow.ly/88W850Xo2nRISSCR | The Gairdner Foundation | SickKids Foundation

In a surprising and exciting discovery, researchers at Yale and the Weizmann Institute of Science have found the first evidence ever recorded that cells outside of the pancreas may be capable of producing insulin on their own.

“It was completely serendipitous,” says Dr. Liza Konnikova, an assistant professor in pediatrics and obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine, a member of the Human and Translational Immunology Program, and co-senior author of the study. “The more we looked into it, we realized that insulin was originating from within the small intestine. We were able to show that both the RNA and the protein are made in the small intestinal cells. Moreover, signaling for insulin production is also intact in these cells.”

It appears that cells in unborn babies’ small intestines produce insulin spontaneously and have a complete expression signature. The researchers believe the production of insulin in the small intestines may help promote the growth and maturation of the intestines in preparation for birth.

“Cells in the intestinal tract are a wonderful potential source of insulin because they are continuously renewed from intestinal stem cells,” says co-lead author Shalev Itzkovitz, associate professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, a research institution based in Israel. “This could be an advantage in Type 1 diabetes, where insulin-producing cells are under attack from our immune system.”

Their findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.

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