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Early in 2017, a pair of papers in Cell presented evidence in mice for two possible routes to treating type 1 diabetes. In one, the scientists injected animals with the neurotransmitter GABA, which they reported could convert cells in the pancreas to insulin-producing β cells, and in the other they identified an anti-malaria compound that could convert pancreatic α cells to β-like cells and induce insulin production.
“These Cell papers were really important because they represented a chemical test of a long-standing genetic hypothesis . . . that one should be able to manipulate the relative number of β cells” by manipulating the pathways responsible for generating insulin-producing cells, Jake Kushner, medical director for McNair Interests in Houston, Texas and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who did not participate in the studies, tells The Scientist.
There’s just one problem. Scientists can’t seem to ...
