Updated: 3 hours ago
Medically reviewed by Dr. Wang, Medical Editor, ChinaCureLink
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Introduction
China's first patient to have type 1 diabetes reversed with lab-grown cells from her own body has now kept her results for nearly three years, according to an August 2026 update from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the same month, the team behind that result unveiled an automated platform designed to make the cells faster and cheaper.
It is the latest in a run of type 1 diabetes milestones from China since 2024: the first patient freed from insulin injections, the first teenager to receive lab-grown islet tissue, and a new standardized therapy now being tested in a formal clinical trial. Headlines saying China cures type 1 diabetes capture something real. They also skip important details about who has benefited, what still has to be solved, and how long the next steps will take.
Type 1 Diabetes Results Now Lasting Nearly Three Years
In August 2026, the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported that patients who received laboratory-produced islet cells for type 1 diabetes in Professor Deng Hongkui's program at Peking University had regained blood sugar control, with results lasting nearly three years. The update matters because durability was the biggest question when the first result was announced in 2024: transplanted cells can work for months and then fail.
At the same time, Deng's team launched an automated system that handles the whole production process, from a blood sample through chemical reprogramming, AI-assisted cell screening and quality checks. The goal is to make each patient's cells more precisely, more quickly and at lower cost — the main barriers to treating more than a handful of people.
This follows a March 2026 announcement from Shanghai. A team from Shanghai Changzheng Hospital and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science published results for three people with type 1 diabetes who had completely lost their own insulin production: a 30-year-old woman who had lived with the disease for 18 years, a 45-year-old man with fulminant type 1 diabetes, and a 15-year-old girl.
Table of Content
How Chinese Scientists Rebuild Insulin-Producing Cells
Type 1 diabetes happens when the immune system destroys the beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin. Chinese researchers are rebuilding that lost tissue in the laboratory and transplanting it back. Two teams use different methods.
Peking University: Islets Grown From the Patient's Own Fat Cells
In June 2023, the Peking University team, working with Tianjin First Central Hospital, treated a 25-year-old woman who had lived with type 1 diabetes for 11 years and could not control her blood sugar despite intensive insulin therapy.
The team took cells from her fat tissue, chemically reprogrammed them into stem cells, and grew them into about 1.5 million insulin-producing islet equivalents. These were injected beneath the muscle sheath of her abdomen in a procedure of about 30 minutes.
She stopped needing insulin 75 days after the transplant.
Her time in the target blood sugar range rose from about 43% to over 98%.
Her HbA1c settled at around 5%, the level of someone without diabetes.
The results, published in Cell in September 2024, met all safety and efficacy goals at one year.
Shanghai: "E-Islets" for Adults and a Teenager
The Shanghai team, led by Professor Yin Hao and researcher Cheng Xin, grows a more specialised starting cell called an endoderm stem cell, which is already on the path to becoming pancreatic tissue. This cuts the final production step from about 40 days to 14 and lowers the risk of unwanted cell growth. The resulting tissue is called an E-islet.
The 45-year-old man received E-islets from a donor's cells, stopped insulin at week 36 and has stayed insulin-free for more than two years.
The 15-year-old girl went from about 25% to 94% of her time in the healthy blood sugar range, and her severe low blood sugar episodes stopped, though she still uses some insulin.
The 30-year-old woman received E-islets made from her own cells and regained strong insulin production — until she stopped her immune-suppressing drugs, after which the new cells stopped working within months.
China's Type 1 Diabetes Breakthroughs, 2023–2026
Date | Milestone |
June 2023 | Peking University and Tianjin First Central Hospital perform the first own-cell stem cell islet transplant for type 1 diabetes |
April 2024 | Shanghai team reports a type 2 diabetes patient off insulin after an E-islet transplant (Cell Discovery) |
September 2024 | Cell publishes the first type 1 result: insulin-free from day 75, all one-year goals met |
April 2025 | China clears the donor-cell product E-islet 01 for clinical trials |
August 2025 | E-islet 01 Phase 1/2a trial begins at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital |
January 2026 | United States clears E-islet 01 for clinical trials |
March 2026 | The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology publishes three Shanghai type 1 cases, including the first child |
August 2026 | CAS reports Peking University results lasting nearly three years; automated cell production platform unveiled |
Functional Cure vs Complete Cure
China's results are a major step toward curing type 1 diabetes, and researchers describe them with a specific term. They separate two kinds of cure:
Functional cure: the body produces its own insulin again and blood sugar stays healthy without injections. Several Chinese patients have reached this point.
Complete cure: the new cells keep working for many years and the immune attack is switched off without lifelong medication. No team in the world has achieved this yet.
The sticking point is the immune system. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, so the immune system can attack replacement cells just as it attacked the originals — even cells grown from the patient's own body. The Shanghai woman who lost her new cells after stopping immune-suppressing drugs showed this clearly. The first Peking University patient was already taking those drugs because of two earlier liver transplants.
That means today's successful patients take immunosuppressants, which raise the risk of infections and other side effects. It is also why the first trials focus on people whose diabetes is dangerous to live with, rather than people managing well on insulin. Some articles claim these transplants need no immune-suppressing drugs because the cells come from the patient. The published evidence so far does not support that claim.
The numbers are also still small: a handful of published patients across two programmes. Experts generally want to see results hold for around five years in larger groups before using the word "cure" without qualification.
Integrative Medicine in Shenzhen: A Different Approach
Not every type 1 diabetes result from China involves stem cells. At Shenzhen Hengsheng Hospital, part of Fosun Health, a team led by Dr. An Chiying uses integrative medicine — a combination of immune calming, gut repair, nutrition and traditional Chinese medicine — to protect the insulin-producing cells a patient still has. In March 2026, the hospital announced that 30 type 1 patients had stopped insulin through this approach, including an 11-year-old who had been off insulin for 21 months.
Two details help put this in context:
The patients who stopped insulin still made some of their own insulin before treatment. According to the hospital, all 30 had fasting C-peptide above 0.5 ng/ml; patients with lower levels reduced their insulin but did not stop it. This approach aims to protect remaining beta cells, not replace lost ones.
The results are hospital-reported. They had not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal at the time of the announcement.
It is a different strategy from the stem cell research above, and aimed at a different group of patients — typically people diagnosed more recently who still have some insulin production.
Clinical Trials, Automation and the Next Steps
China's type 1 diabetes research is now moving from individual patients to formal trials and larger-scale production.
The E-islet 01 trial at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT07126873) aims to enrol 21 adults aged 18–75 who have had type 1 diabetes for more than five years, make almost no insulin of their own, and experience severe or unnoticed low blood sugar episodes. The trial is expected to finish by the end of 2029.
United States testing: E-islet 01 is the only regenerative islet therapy cleared for clinical trials in both China and the US, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Automation and cost: Peking University's new platform is aimed at producing personalised cells at a scale and price that could one day reach more patients.
The immune challenge: Researchers in China and elsewhere are working on "immune-evasive" islets that could survive without immunosuppressive drugs. That is widely seen as the step that would turn today's results into a practical cure.
For now, stem cell islet therapy for type 1 diabetes is available only within research studies, not as a standard hospital treatment.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Has China cured type 1 diabetes?
China has achieved a functional cure for type 1 diabetes in a small number of patients, who now make their own insulin after receiving lab-grown islet cells. Because these patients still take immune-suppressing drugs and the numbers are small, it is not yet a complete cure available to everyone.
How long have Chinese type 1 patients stayed off insulin?
The Peking University programme's results have lasted nearly three years, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in August 2026. In Shanghai, an adult patient has been reported insulin-free for more than two years.
What cells did Chinese scientists use?
Peking University used the patient's own fat cells, reprogrammed into stem cells and grown into insulin-producing islets. The Shanghai team used blood cells from the patient or a donor, turned into endoderm stem cells and then into E-islets.
Do patients still need insulin or other medicines after the transplant?
Some stop insulin completely, while others, like the Shanghai teenager, still need a smaller amount. Successful patients so far take immunosuppressive drugs to protect the new cells.
Has a child received this treatment?
Yes. A 15-year-old girl in Shanghai was the first child to receive stem cell–derived islet therapy. Her blood sugar control improved sharply, though she still uses some insulin. The current E-islet 01 trial is limited to adults.
When will stem cell treatment for type 1 diabetes be widely available?
No approval date has been set. The main Chinese trial is expected to run until the end of 2029, and larger studies would likely follow before regular use.
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References
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese Researchers Unveil Automated Stem-Cell Production Platform. 7 August 2026. https://english.casad.cas.cn/newsroom/ma/202608/t20260807_1186953.html
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese Scientists Transplant Stem Cell-derived Islets to Treat Type 1 Diabetes. 18 March 2026. https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/cas-in-media/202603/t20260318_1152861.shtml
Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, CAS. New approach to treat type 1 diabetes (China Daily). 18 March 2026. https://cemcs.cas.cn/mtsm/202603/t20260318_8161191.html
Autologous and allogeneic stem cell-derived islet therapy in three recipients with type 1 diabetes and complete loss of endogenous pancreatic β-cell function pretransplant. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(25)00423-1
Wang S, Du Y, Zhang B, et al. Transplantation of chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets under abdominal anterior rectus sheath in a type 1 diabetes patient. Cell. 2024;187(22):6152–6164. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01022-5
Treating a type 2 diabetic patient with impaired pancreatic islet function by personalized endoderm stem cell-derived islet tissue. Cell Discovery. 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-024-00662-3
ClinicalTrials.gov. A Safety, Tolerability, and Efficacy Study of E-islet 01 in Participants With Type 1 Diabetes (NCT07126873). https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07126873
Shenzhen Hengsheng Hospital via GlobeNewswire (paid press release). Chinese medical team enables 30 type 1 diabetes patients to discontinue insulin through integrative medicine. 12 March 2026. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-medical-team-enables-30-092400922.html
