Researchers transforming skin into insulin-producing cells

[admin]

University of North Carolina researchers are “reprogramming” human skin into cells that produce insulin, the hormone used in treating diabetics. With diabetes rates soaring in Texas and nationally, researchers on the Chapel Hill medical school campus believe they might be on the way to finding a new way of treating the disease.

The reprogramming causes the skin cells to change into adult stem cells capable of acting like insulin-secreting cells, according to the abstract published in the online Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Insulin injection is used to control blood sugar in people who have diabetes.

Data from the Texas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 2006 show that 8 percent of adults in Texas were diabetics, compared with 7.5 percent nationwide. In Travis County in 2006, diabetes rates were even higher: 8.7 percent of adults.