Doctors in Chicago just helped a dozen Type 1 diabetics live without daily insulin shots.
Quick Take
- A Chicago clinical trial transplanted donor islet cells into the livers of Type 1 diabetes patients, aiming to restore natural insulin production.
- University of Chicago Medicine reports two of three closely studied patients reached normal blood sugar with zero insulin shots, while a third cut insulin use by over 60 percent.
- Drugmaker Eledon says all 10 patients tracked more than four weeks after transplant reached insulin independence with strong blood sugar control.
- Patients still take anti-rejection drugs regularly, and the treatment remains experimental, offered at only a few U.S. centers.
A Trial Built Around Restoring A Broken System
Type 1 diabetes happens when the body’s immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. Without insulin, blood sugar spins out of control. The Chicago trial tries something different than daily shots. Surgeons take islet cells from a deceased donor’s pancreas and inject them straight into a patient’s liver, where they can start making insulin again.
Patient Katie Beth Hans described life after the transplant in strikingly simple terms. She said she could finally eat what she wanted and sleep through the night, calling those her two biggest changes since joining the study. For someone who managed a lifelong disease with constant monitoring and injections, that kind of relief is no small thing.
The Numbers Behind The Headlines
University of Chicago Medicine tracked three early participants closely. Two reached normal, stable blood sugar and stopped needing insulin injections entirely. The third cut insulin use by more than 60 percent. Those are real, documented results, not vague promises, and they came from one of the only hospitals in the country currently running this kind of trial.
Eledon, the biotech company supplying the anti-rejection drug used in the trial, released broader numbers in March. Every one of the 10 patients who had passed the four-week mark after transplant reached insulin independence. Their average blood sugar marker, known as HbA1c, landed around 5.35 percent, which falls in the normal range for people without diabetes at all.
Why This Isn’t A Simple Cure Yet
Transplanted islet cells come from someone else’s body, so the immune system naturally wants to attack them. Patients take an investigational antibody drug called tegoprubart every three weeks to stop rejection. That means the treatment swaps daily insulin management for a different ongoing therapy, not full freedom from treatment altogether.
The trial pool remains small. A dozen patients in the NBC report, three in University of Chicago Medicine’s detailed writeup, 10 in Eledon’s expanded dataset. Promising numbers in a handful of patients don’t automatically hold up once hundreds or thousands try the same therapy. Researchers still need to see how long the benefits last and how patients fare after years, not months.
A Longer Road From Lab To Living Rooms
This Chicago trial doesn’t stand alone. The Food and Drug Administration already approved a similar donor islet therapy called Lantidra in 2023, but only for adults with severe, hard-to-control low blood sugar episodes who’ve tried everything else. That narrow approval shows regulators see real value in islet transplants, while also showing how far the field remains from a blanket cure for Type 1 diabetes.
Donor islets come from cadavers, which limits how many people could ever get this treatment even if every result held up perfectly. Scarcity, immune suppression requirements, and small sample sizes mean this breakthrough deserves real excitement without overselling it as a finished cure. Patients and families watching this story should feel hopeful, and also patient, as bigger trials and longer follow-up data arrive in the years ahead.
Sources:
youtube.com, uchicagomedicine.org, clinicaltrials.gov, breakthrought1d.org, fda.gov
