China trial shows gum tissue stem cells help 55% of lifetime diabetes patients

A randomised phase 1 clinical trial conducted by scientists and doctors from Shanghai and Guangzhou has achieved encouraging results in the treatment of Type 1 diabetes using stem cells extracted from the mouth’s gum tissue.

More than half of those who received the treatment showed varying degrees of improvement, while one subject was able to discontinue exogenous insulin therapy completely, the researchers said.

Results of the study, which tested a therapy based on gingival mesenchymal stem cells (GMSC), appeared on September 30 in the medical journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

People with Type 1 diabetes do not produce enough insulin and need to take it to survive. This form of diabetes is not preventable and there is no cure.

Those with the condition need to test their blood sugar – by pricking their fingers – multiple times each day and need an insulin injection after every meal. On average, they can inject insulin four to five times daily.

“This study provided rigorous clinical evidence regarding GMSC therapy for Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and offered a promising new direction for the development of immune-targeted therapies for T1DM,” corresponding author Song Guo Zheng wrote.

Zheng, an eminent immunologist now at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was one of the highest-profile targets of the controversial China Initiative that was launched in US President Donald Trump’s first term to counter alleged espionage by Chinese scientists.

The former professor of rheumatology and immunology at Ohio State University’s College of Medicine was imprisoned in the US from 2020 to 2023 and ordered to repay millions of dollars in research funds for failing to disclose his China ties.

In May 2021, Zheng was sentenced to 37 months in prison on charges of making false statements to the US federal government. He was never found guilty of intellectual property theft or unauthorised transfers of research or technology – the stated goals of the China Initiative.

Zheng joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University in July 2023 after his release, serving as dean of the Institute of Cell and Gene Therapy, where he has been continuing his stem cell research.

Traditional stem cell-based therapies for Type 1 diabetes use pancreatic and bone marrow stem cells but these are hard to obtain and prone to rejection by the body’s immune system.

Zheng turned his attention to gingival stem cells, which are easier to obtain from gum tissue – via dental procedures such as tooth extraction – while retaining their ability to differentiate into insulin-secreting cells.

The clinical study was a collaboration with Chen Yanming, director of endocrinology at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, southern China, where the trial was conducted using cell methods from Zheng’s previous research.

According to the paper, 18 patients with Type 1 diabetes volunteered to take part in the clinical trial, which used gingival stem cells derived from surplus gum tissue donated with informed consent by healthy patients aged between 20 and 30.

08:30

Why are more Chinese scientists leaving the US to return to China?

The volunteers were randomised, with half receiving a GMSC injection every three weeks while the remainder were given a placebo. They completed four treatments and were followed for 48 weeks.

After four treatment sessions, the GMSC group showed a significant increase in residual beta-cell function relative to baseline, with 55.6 per cent – five out of the nine – experiencing varying degrees of improvement.

The daily insulin requirement for this group also decreased compared with baseline. One patient no longer needed exogenous insulin after the first GMSC treatment and maintained ideal glycaemic control during the follow-up.

In terms of safety, the clinical study found that the GMSC treatment did not increase the risk of hypoglycaemia and other adverse events, with none occurring during the trial.

“Larger-scale, longer-term cohort studies recruiting participants with diverse residual beta-cell functions are needed in the future to validate our conclusions and improve the generalisability of the results,” Zheng concluded.

Passionate about science? Dive deeper with the Dark Matters newsletter, a weekly in-depth analysis on China’s rise in science, technology and military that goes beneath the surface. Sign up for free now.