Using A Diabetes Patient's Own Liver Cells As A Novel Source Of Insulin

By Sarah Ferber, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer and founder, Orgenesis

Diabetes currently afflicts approximately 285 million people worldwide, about 6.4 percent of the global population. The World Health Organization projects that this number is set to rise to 366 million by the year 2030. According to the American Diabetes Association, 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010, an estimated 7.0 million Americans have undiagnosed diabetes, and another 79 million have prediabetes. In addition, approximately 25.8 million children and adults in the United States— 8.3% of the population—have diabetes.

Several kinds of treatment for diabetes are currently available, but all of them present specific drawbacks to the patient. For example, insulin therapy can trigger everything from weight gain to hypoglycemia, and its administration must be constantly controlled and monitored by the patient.