TOKYO: A new method to create insulin-producing pancreatic cells from stem cells and protect them from the body's immune system could pave the way for improving an experimental diabetes treatment.

In type-1 diabetes, the body turns on itself and attacks the so-called beta cells inside clusters in the pancreas called "islets".

These beta cells are responsible for gauging sugar levels in the blood and releasing insulin to keep them stable. When they are depleted, a person is at risk for either high or low blood sugar and has to rely on insulin injections.

One treatment devised to end that reliance involves transplanting donor islets into diabetics, but the process is complicated by several obstacles.

There are not enough donors, especially as one transplant generally requires several to ensure enough islets are available.

Islets also often fail to connect with blood supply, and even when they do, like other transplants, they risk attack from the immune system of the recipient, which sees it as an invasion.

As a result, patients have to take drugs that suppress their immune systems, protecting their transplant but exposing the rest of their body to other illness.

In a bid to overcome some of these challenges, a team looked to find another source for islets, by coaxing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to produce what the team called HILOs, or human islet-like organoids.

These HILOs, when grown in a 3D environment mimicking the pancreas and then turbocharged with a "genetic switch", successfully produced insulin and were able to regulate blood glucose function after being transplanted into diabetic mice.

Having found a potential way to solve the supply chain problem, the scientists then sought to tackle the issue of immune rejection.