Diabetes affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, yet for most patients, treatment still means managing symptoms rather than addressing the underlying cause. Insulin injections and medications can help keep blood sugar levels in check, but they don’t restore what diabetes takes away: the body’s own ability to regulate glucose. To understand why our researchers are so focused on changing this, it helps to start with the cell at the center of it all, the pancreatic beta cell.
What Are Pancreatic Beta Cells?
Pancreatic beta cells (sometimes referred to simply as beta cells) are specialized cells found in clusters of tissue within the pancreas known as the islets of Langerhans. These clusters also contain other cell types, including alpha cells, which produce glucagon, and delta cells, which produce somatostatin, but beta cells are the most critical for blood sugar regulation. Their primary job is to produce, store, and secrete insulin, the hormone that allows the body’s cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream and use it for energy.
Beta cells are remarkably responsive. They continuously monitor blood glucose levels and adjust insulin output accordingly, ramping up after a meal and scaling back during periods of fasting. This real-time feedback loop is what keeps blood sugar stable in a healthy individual.
How Beta Cell Function Regulates Blood Sugar
When you eat, glucose enters the bloodstream and beta cells detect the rise in blood sugar. In response, they release insulin, which signals cells throughout the body, in muscle, fat, and the liver, to take up glucose. As blood glucose drops back to a normal range, insulin secretion slows.
At the same time, alpha cells in the islets play a complementary role. When blood sugar falls too low, they release glucagon, which prompts the liver to release stored glucose back into the bloodstream. This interplay between insulin and glucagon keeps the body operating within a healthy range.
Healthy beta cell function, then, is not just about producing enough insulin; it’s about producing the right amount at the right time, in constant coordination with other cells in the islet.
What Happens to Beta Cells in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes?
In both major forms of diabetes, this finely tuned system breaks down, but for different reasons.
In type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly identifies beta cells as a threat and attacks them. Over time, this autoimmune process destroys the majority of a patient’s beta cells, leaving them unable to produce meaningful amounts of insulin. Without insulin, glucose builds up in the bloodstream to dangerous levels. Type 1 diabetes typically develops early in life and requires lifelong insulin therapy to survive.
In type 2 diabetes, the problem begins with insulin resistance – the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin’s signals. To compensate, beta cells work harder, producing more insulin to achieve the same effect. Over years, this sustained demand takes a toll: beta cell function gradually declines, and in many patients, significant beta cell loss follows. Type 1 diabetes research has historically driven much of the scientific focus on beta cells, but the progressive nature of beta cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes makes beta cell restoration a compelling goal for both conditions.
Can Beta Cells Be Replaced? Current Treatment Limitations
For decades, the closest thing to a beta cell replacement therapy available to patients has been islet transplantation, a procedure in which islet cells from a donor pancreas are transferred into a patient. When successful, it can restore insulin production and, in some cases, eliminate the need for insulin injections.
The problem is scalability. Donor pancreases are scarce, and the procedure cannot come close to meeting the global demand for diabetes treatment. Patients who receive a transplant also typically need to take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent rejection (medications that carry serious long-term risks, including increased susceptibility to infection and certain cancers).
Insulin therapy, meanwhile, remains the dominant new diabetes treatment option for type 1 patients, and it’s effective at managing the condition, but not a cure. It requires constant monitoring, careful dosing, and daily administration. It does nothing to restore beta cell function or address the root cause of the disease.
This gap, the absence of a scalable, accessible, and drug-free approach to restoring beta cell function, is where the most promising new research is focused.
Advances in Beta Cell Replacement Therapy
The emergence of stem cell science has opened a new chapter in beta cell replacement therapy. Stem cells, which have the ability to develop into many different cell types, offer a potential pathway to producing insulin-secreting beta cells in the lab at scale, without relying on organ donors.
Among the most promising approaches is the use of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. Unlike embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are derived by reprogramming adult cells (typically skin or blood cells) back into a stem-like state. This means they avoid the ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cell research, and because they can theoretically be derived from a patient’s own cells, they offer the potential to sidestep immune rejection.
Type 1 diabetes stem cell treatment using iPSC-derived beta cells represents one of the most exciting frontiers in this space. However, many approaches in development still rely on immunosuppressive drugs to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted cells, or require an implantable device to shield the cells from immune attack. Achieving a therapy that restores insulin production without these additional burdens remains the key challenge in the field.
How RMS Is Using Stem Cell Technology to Regenerate Beta Cells
Regenerative Medical Solutions (RMS) is working to meet that challenge directly. Founded on over two decades of research from Dr. Jon Odorico’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, RMS has developed a proprietary iPSC-based approach to producing what it calls Islet-Like Clusters, or ILCs; cell clusters that closely mirror the composition and function of natural human islets, containing insulin-producing beta cells alongside alpha and delta cells.
What distinguishes RMS’s approach is what it’s designed to avoid. The prospective therapy does not use embryonic stem cells, is not dependent on organ donation, and is designed to work across all blood types, making it potentially suitable for a far broader patient population. Critically, the therapy is being developed without the need for heavy immunosuppressive drugs or an implantable device. RMS’s prospective cure targets both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, reflecting the widespread need for a solution that goes beyond symptom management.
The biotech company’s iPSC diabetes research is backed by a substantial intellectual property portfolio, including multiple issued patents, as well as grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a significant marker of scientific validation for a company at this stage of development.
RMS is currently preparing an Investigational New Drug (IND) submission for entrance into human clinical trials, a milestone that represents years of foundational research translating into real clinical potential.
Beta cells sit at the heart of diabetes, and restoring their function is one of the most important goals in modern medicine. As stem cell science matures and iPSC-based therapies move closer to clinical reality, the prospect of a scalable, accessible cure for diabetes is becoming less hypothetical and more within reach.
To learn more about RMS’s stem cell research or to explore research and collaboration opportunities, contact our team.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pancreatic Beta Cells and Diabetes Treatment
What do pancreatic beta cells do? Pancreatic beta cells produce and secrete insulin in response to rising blood glucose levels. They act as the body’s primary mechanism for keeping blood sugar within a healthy range, adjusting insulin output continuously based on what the body needs.
What happens to beta cells in diabetes? In type 1 diabetes, the immune system destroys beta cells, leaving the body unable to produce insulin. In type 2 diabetes, beta cells initially work harder to overcome insulin resistance, but gradually lose function over time. Both conditions ultimately impair the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar effectively.
Can beta cells regenerate or be replaced? In healthy individuals, beta cells have a limited capacity to regenerate. In people with diabetes, this capacity is significantly reduced or lost. However, emerging research into beta cell replacement therapy, particularly using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), is exploring ways to restore insulin-producing cells from outside the body.
What is iPSC-based beta cell therapy? iPSC-based therapy involves reprogramming adult cells into a stem-like state and then directing them to develop into insulin-producing beta cells. Because iPSCs can be produced without using embryonic stem cells, this approach avoids a number of ethical and practical limitations associated with earlier stem cell research methods.
Does beta cell replacement therapy work for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes? Research into beta cell replacement has historically focused on type 1 diabetes, where beta cell loss is most complete. However, because beta cell dysfunction also plays a significant role in type 2 diabetes, a successful cell replacement therapy could have meaningful applications for both conditions.
What makes RMS’s approach to beta cell therapy different? RMS is developing an iPSC-based therapy designed to restore insulin production without the need for immunosuppressive drugs, an implantable device, or organ donation. The therapy is being developed for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and is designed to work across all blood types, addressing some of the key limitations of existing treatment approaches.