Patient Gurtaj Dhillon has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 27 years, paying close attention to his glucose levels to prevent complications and serious illness. He even sets his alarm every night to check his blood sugar while he sleeps.

For Gurtaj, new research from the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) Diabetes Centre and the University of British Columbia (UBC) could be life-changing. “This brings me hope for freedom.”

Recent research outcomes reveal that a ground-breaking stem cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes not only effectively regulates blood glucose levels, but also reduces the necessity for daily insulin injections.

“This research is a significant step toward a functional cure for Type 1 diabetes,” said Dr. David Thompson, principal investigator at the Vancouver trial site, Director of the VGH Diabetes Centre, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Endocrinology at UBC.

While there is no permanent cure for Type 1 diabetes, an immune system condition that causes the pancreas stops making insulin, current treatment options include pancreas transplants and islet cell transplants. The former extracts insulin-producing islet cells from donors and injects them into recipients.

These two transplant methods are proven and successful, however, they require deceased donors and recipients must take immunosuppressant medication that causes side effects.