KETANKUMAR KOTHARI

Scientists may have found a cure for type 1 diabetes. For the first time ever, a man with type 1 diabetes is making his own insulin after receiving a cell transplant that required no immune-suppressing drugs. Doctors took islet cells – the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas – from a donor. But before they were transplanted, scientists used CRISPR to edit three specific genes. Two of those edits made the cells less visible to the immune system. The third increased production of a protein called CD47, which acts like a biological shield, telling immune cells not to attack. Then they injected the edited cells into the man’s forearm. Within weeks, those cells began producing insulin. And 12 weeks later, they still are – with no rejection, no complications, and no immune-suppressing drugs. That’s a major breakthrough. In the past, cell transplants for type 1 diabetes almost always failed without heavy drugs to suppress the immune response. Those drugs come with serious risks: infections, organ damage, even cancer. ["Survival of Transplanted Allogeneic Beta Cells with No Immunosuppression." The New England Journal of Medicine, 2025]