This was because by this stage, the immune system had destroyed the body's islet cells.
Also, there are many more potential donors than with islet cells from the deceased.
BBC: Many people with diabetes must have regular insulin shots
Usually, this is the result of an immune reaction that destroys the islet cells.
One trial aims to cure diabetes by transplanting insulin-producing islet cells from deceased donors into diabetic patients.
Islet cells, found in the pancreas, could theoretically be developed from stem cells.
Your type I or juvenile-onset diabetes is due to the islet cells located in your pancreas no longer producing insulin.
Once these cells, called islet cells, are destroyed by the immune system, the body has no way of making insulin.
It is a rare type of cancer called pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that afflicts the hormone producing islet cells in the pancreas.
Early increased growth is associated with the body making more insulin, which is thought to increase the likelihood of an autoimmune response to pancreatic islet cells.
The new transplant technique is "extremely" gentle on delicate islet cells, causing little or none of the cellular fragmentation that occurs during hepatic portal injection, they said.
Patients who retain even a minor amount of natural insulin production are far less likely to go blind or fall into a coma from insulin overdosage than those who lose all their islet cells.
Now into this gloom comes a new type of drug, called an anti-CD3 antibody, that aims for the first time to delay or prevent development of the devastating disease by arresting the immune system's attack on pancreatic islet cells.
Among them are neural cells to treat spinal cord injury and degenerative nervous system diseases, cardiomyocytes to treat heart disease, pancreatic islet cells to treat diabetes, dendritic cells for cancer therapy, chondrocytes for arthritis, osteoblasts to rebuild bone and hepatocytes for drug discovery and liver failure.
Islet stem cells currently are obtained from human organ donors.
Moreover, Novartis is already testing its drug in other diseases including islet cell carcinoma, a cancer of the insulin-producing cells.
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