A collaborative team from Weill Cornell Medicine and Peking University has demonstrated that human stomach tissue can be reprogrammed in vivo to produce insulin, offering an intriguing future strategy for autologous beta-cell replacement in type 1 diabetes. Building on earlier work in mice, the researchers created human gastric organoids derived from embryonic stem cells and engineered them with inducible reprogramming factors capable of driving beta-cell–like differentiation. These organoids were implanted into the abdominal cavity of mice, where they survived and matured for up to six months, developing tissue organization and vascular integration similar to the native stomach.
When the engineered “genetic switch” was activated, cells within these organoids converted into insulin-producing cells that exhibited beta-cell–like gene expression and protein profiles. In diabetic mice,…
