A team of medical researchers affiliated with a large number of institutions in China has functionally cured a female patient with type 1 diabetes by injecting her with programmed stem cells.

In a procedure lasting approximately 30 minutes, the researchers injected 1.5 million of the islets they had grown into the abdomen of the first patient, a 25-year-old woman. Placing them in the abdomen allowed for easy monitoring and removal if necessary. Two and a half months later, testing showed the patient was producing enough of her own insulin to stop injections.