Researchers turn living cells into insulin-makers

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have transformed ordinary cells into insulin-producing cells in a living mouse, improving symptoms of diabetes in a major step towards regenerative medicine.

The technique, called direct reprogramming, bypasses the need for stem cells -- the body's master cells which, until now, have been indispensable to efforts to custom-make tissue and organ transplants.

The researchers used three genes carried by an ordinary virus to transform mouse exocrine cells, which make up about 95 percent of the pancreas, into the scarce insulin-producing beta cells that are destroyed in type 1 or juvenile diabetes.