Researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have discovered that a specific gene – Sox17 – plays an important role in directing cells to become part of the pancreas or part of the bile duct (used in the digestion of food).

Research in mouse embryos found that the Sox17 gene “acts like a toggle or binary switch that sets off a cascade of genetic events,” said the study’s senior investigator, James Wells.

You can read more on this exciting breakthrough on the Diabetes UK website…

A handful of people with type 1 diabetes have been able to survive without insulin shots for more than two-and-a-half years, on average, after having their own blood stem cells removed and reimplanted through intravenous injection, U.S. and Brazilian researchers reported Tuesday.Overall, the technique has been tried in 23 people, mostly boys and young men, who were treated within six weeks of a new diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. People who have type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, typically need insulin shots to survive. (People with type 1 make up only about 10 percent of all diabetics; most people have type 2, which can be controlled with diet, exercise, oral drugs, or insulin shots.)

Further reading @ CNN… http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/15/stem.cells.diabetes/index.html