Insulin is produced by the green cells that are in clusters about the same size as the islets in the human pancreas. The red cells are producing another metabolic hormone, glucagon, that prevents low blood sugar. Harvard University hide caption

Insulin is produced by the green cells that are in clusters about the same size as the islets in the human pancreas. The red cells are producing another metabolic hormone, glucagon, that prevents low blood sugar.

A team of Harvard scientists said Thursday that they had finally found a way to turn human embryonic stem cells into cells that produce insulin. The long-sought advance could eventually lead to new ways to help millions of people with diabetes.

Right now, many people with diabetes have to regularly check the level of sugar in their blood and inject themselves with insulin to keep the sugar in their blood in check. It's an imperfect treatment.

"This is kind of a life-support for diabetics," says Doug Melton, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard Medical School. "It doesn't cure the disease and leads to devastating complications of the disease."

People with poorly controlled diabetes can suffer complications such as blindness, amputations and heart attacks.

Researchers have had some success transplanting insulin-producing cells from cadavers into people with diabetes. But it's been difficult to procure enough cells to treat large numbers of patients. So scientists have been trying to figure out how they could get more cells more easily.

For Melton, who led the work at Harvard, this has been a personal quest. His son, Sam, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 6 months old, and his daughter, Emma, was diagnosed with the disease when she was 14.

"I do what any parent would do, which is to say, 'I'm not going to put up with this, and I want to find a better way,' " he says.

And now Melton and his colleagues are reporting in a paper being published in this week's issue of the journal Cell that they think they have finally found that better way.

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Scientists Coax Human Embryonic Stem Cells Into Making Insulin