CHAIYABOOT ARIYACHET (VIA EUREKALERT)In type I diabetes, insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the immune system, reducing an individual’s capacity to regulate glucose levels in the blood. Now a team led by researchers at Harvard has reported a new method to create personalized insulin-producing organs in vitro, which can restore normal blood-glucose levels when transplanted into mice with the disease. The findings were published last week (February 18) in Cell Stem Cell.

“In various disease states, you have a constant loss of beta cells,” study coauthor Qiao Zhou of Harvard University said in a statement. “We provide, in principle, an advantage to replenish those.”

Cells in a region called the pylorus, between the stomach and the small intestine, frequently regenerate and also show...