Those cells soon produced enough insulin to regulate blood sugar effectively, the researchers report in today's Nature Medicine .
Stem cells have the ability to evolve into an array of cell types as they mature.
After these stem cells were placed in the mice, the cells secreted insulin and thrived as new blood vessels grew toward them. Within a week to 10 days, all the mice were able to regulate levels glucose in the bloodstream for the length of the study. The University of Florida scientists who performed the research harvested pancreatic cells in their earliest stages of development from mice, then nurtured the cells in the laboratory until they evolved into small insulin-secreting organs known as islets of Langerhans. The researchers then collected the cells into a syringe and injected them just beneath the surface of the animals' skin. Within a few days, they began to function like the pancreas' islets of Langerhans, said UF immunologist Ammon B. Peck.