Report: Sperm Stem Cells Can Be Turned Into Insulin-Making Cells To Treat Diabetes

Scientists have made insulin-producing cells from sperm stem cells, a technique that could one day be used to treat people with type 1 diabetes, according to a report in The Guardian U.K. newspaper

The disease is caused by the destruction of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, leading to low levels of the hormone that regulates sugar in the blood. It can develop at any age but usually appears before the age of 40, and particularly in childhood. Around 5-15% of all people with diabetes have type 1 diabetes, which is usually treated with, among other things, daily insulin injections.

In the latest study, G. Ian Gallicano, an associate professor at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington DC, transformed the early precursors for human sperm, called spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), into beta-islet cells, which produce insulin and are normally found in the pancreas. When he transferred these cells into mice, they successfully regulated sugar levels in the rodents’ blood.

He presented his team’s work today at the American Society of Cell Biology annual meeting in Philadelphia. “No stem cells, adult or embryonic, have been induced to secrete enough insulin yet to cure diabetes in humans, but we know SSCs have the potential to do what we want them to do, and we know how to improve their yield,” said Gallicano.

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