Stem Cell Therapy Frees Woman From Diabetes

Amanda Smith, a 35-year-old nurse from London with Type 1 diabetes, is at the forefront of a medical experiment that seeks to treat the root cause of diabetes by replacing the cells the disease destroys. On Valentine’s Day 2023, doctors transplanted replacement islet cells, grown in a lab from embryonic stem cells, into a blood vessel that feeds Smith’s liver. By August, she no longer needed insulin. Her new cells were churning it out. Smith is one of a dozen patients who have received a full dose of islet cells generated in a laboratory from stem cells. Eleven of the patients in the clinical trial drastically reduced taking insulin or stopped altogether, according to data presented at an American Diabetes Association meeting in June. Despite the promise, the therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals remains in early stages, and many experts consider it a major step forward, not the finish line.

No one knows how long these cells will keep churning out insulin or whether the therapy is safe long-term until it is tested and followed up in more patients, who must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the foreign cells. One patient died of an infection caused by a complication of sinus surgery, highlighting the risk of immunosuppressive medications, which were among the factors contributing to the patient’s death. […]

Smith credits her insulin pump with keeping her alive but was elated to banish it to the back of a kitchen cabinet. She no longer has to plan her life around her illness. “I pray this gets to everyone,” Smith said. “My life has changed.”