A cure for diabetes is within reach after scientists developed a treatment that eliminates the need for sufferers to inject insulin.
The therapy involves a one-off transplant of laboratory-grown pancreatic cells, which scientists have finally succeeded in producing in large enough volumes to be able to treat patients. The cells worked normally for many months when implanted into mice, and the first human patients should undergo the treatment in the next few years.
The breakthrough by Harvard scientists was hailed yesterday as a medical advance potentially as significant as the advent of antibiotics.
Jose Oberholtzer, an expert in transplantation at the University of Illinois at Chicago, predicted that the development would “leave a dent in the history of diabetes”.
About 400,000 people in Britain have