0:01 UC San Francisco and Vert.Ex. Now, what have they got in common and what are they working on? Very interesting stem cell research. They're in phase three and they've got something to show for it. The lady's name is MJ and she is now non-diabetic. Let's get into this. You're going to enjoy this one today. >> Thanks for joining us today. If you like our channel's content, feel free to hit the link in the description and buy us a coffee. We appreciate all our viewers who support our channel. Now, on to our video. UCSF is curing type 1 diabetes with lab grown cells. That sound, 3:17 a.m. That was my life. A relentless, terrifying roller coaster. Up, down,
0:47 with a crash always waiting just around the corner. You eat, you give yourself a shot of insulin, and you hope you got the dose right. Then 3 hours later, you're jolted awake by an alarm, screaming that your blood sugar is dangerously low. You live by the numbers. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That was my everyday. Or at least it used to be. For millions of people around the world, that scene isn't a movie. It's their reality. This is life with type 1 diabetes. It's not caused by diet or lifestyle. It's an autoimmune disease. A bizarre case of mistaken identity where the body's own defense system goes rogue. From that moment on, the person has to become their own pancreas. Every single day is a grueling balancing act. It's a world of constant math. Counting every carb, pricking
1:34 fingers for blood, and injecting insulin with needles or a pump. The mental load is immense, and there's the constant fear of getting it wrong. Too much insulin causes a dangerous low or hypoglycemia, which can lead to confusion, seizures, or worse. Too little insulin leads to hypoglycemia, which over time ravages nerves, kidneys, eyes, and the heart. It's like walking a tight rope 24/7 with no safety net. For a very small number of people, pancreas or eyelet cell transplants from deceased donors have been an option. But these are major complicated surgeries, and there are tragically few organs to go around. It was a solution for a handful, not for the millions. But what if you didn't need a donor? What if you could
2:20 grow brand new factory workers from scratch? That's the exact question researchers at places like the University of California, San Francisco, UCSF, have been working tirelessly to answer. And now they are on the verge of a revolution. A revolution born from one of the most powerful tools in medicine, the stem cell. Scientists have figured out how to take plur potent stem cells, these incredible master cells that can become any other kind of cell and guide them in a lab to become brand new, fully functional insulin producing eyelet cells. And this isn't science fiction. It's a process they can reproduce and scale up, which could finally solve the organ shortage. A therapy that could in theory be available to everyone who needs it. This specific therapy called
3:07 Zimus leel is being pioneered by Vert.Ex Pharmaceuticals and tested at top medical centers like UCSF. This is where MJ's story takes a turn. At 62, she'd been living with type 1 diabetes since she was 17. She always led an active life, teaching horseback riding, practicing yoga, and refused to let her condition define her. But in the year and a half before the trial, her diabetes took a turn. It became what doctors call brittle. Her blood sugar started swinging so violently and unpredictably that it left her feeling completely out of control. The disease was winning. That's when she heard about the clinical trial at UCSF. A trial testing these very same lab grown eyelet cells. It was a long shot, but it was a
3:52 glimmer of hope. After decades of fighting, after a battery of tests to make sure she was a good candidate, MJ decided to go for it. She would be one of the first people on Earth to receive this incredible allergenic transplant. Cells grown in a lab from a single source ready to go. The process itself is minimally invasive and takes only about 30 minutes. The new eyelet cells, hundreds of millions of them, are suspended in a solution. Doctors then simply infuse these cells into the hippatic portal vein, a major blood vessel that acts like a highway leading directly to the liver. Think of it like planting seeds in rich new soil. The cells travel into the liver, find a new home, grow their own blood supply, and
4:38 if everything goes right, start doing the job they were literally born to do. Sense blood sugar and release insulin automatically, just like a healthy pancreas. After the infusion, MJ stayed in the hospital for about a week. It was a time for careful monitoring as the UCSF team watched for any hint of rejection and tracked how well the new cells were working. Now, the UCSF team was cautiously optimistic. It can take months for the transplanted cells to get fully up to speed and potentially free a patient from needing insulin shots. But for MJ, the change was almost immediate. While she wasn't off insulin right away, the data clearly showed the new eyelets were already helping to control her glucose. The nightly alarms went silent.
5:23 The terrifying blood sugar crashes started to fade away. The graph from her glucose monitor, once a jagged, scary line of peaks and valleys, began to smooth out, staying in a healthy range for longer and longer. The results from the wider clinical trial are nothing short of staggering. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 10 out of 12 participants who received the full dose of Zimlacel who used to depend on insulin injections no longer needed them at all after a year. They were spending over 70% of their time in a healthy glucose range and were free from the dangerous hypoglycemic events that once haunted them. This isn't just one person's amazing story. This is a monumental scientific
6:09 achievement. The success of this trial marks a huge step toward a functional cure for type 1 diabetes. Because the cells are grown from a single renewable stem cell line, it shows that an unlimited supply of eyelets could one day be ready off the shelf for anyone who needs them. This is the therapy researchers have been dreaming about for decades. But there's a catch for now anyway. It's one big string attached to this incredible breakthrough. immunosuppression. Because the new eyelet cells are from a donor source, the body's immune system sees them as foreign invaders and will try to attack them the same way it attacked the original cells. To stop this from happening, patients like MJ have to take imunosuppressive drugs for
6:55 the long term. So the success here isn't the end of the story. Not even close. It's the beginning of the next, even more exciting chapter. Researchers are already tackling the next big challenge, getting rid of the need for imunosuppression. They're exploring everything from safer drugs to using cuttingedge gene editing to create stealthlet cells that can fly under the immune systems radar. The phase 3 trial is now underway with plans to enroll approximately 50 patients in 2025. Vert.Ex aims to submit for global regulatory approval in 2026, which could ultimately make this life-changing therapy available to the public. This is a story of incredible progress, and it's
7:40 a testament to the patients who volunteer for these trials and the scientists who have poured their lives into turning what if into what is. For patients like MJ, the future is already here. The roller coaster is slowing down. The alarms are fading. And the promise of a life free from the daily weight of this disease is finally within reach. For millions more, that future is now closer than ever before. If you want to keep up with the latest on this and other medical breakthroughs, you know what to do. Subscribe to our channel. And for more information on the UCSF diabetes program, we've linked their website in the description below. Well, great things going on there at uh UCSF. They've been worldrenowned uh in the
8:27 fight against diabetes and uh now they are in phase three working with Zamis Lel and u god bless MJ. We wish her the very best and I know you're going to be thinking first things first and they have to use immunosuppression but that's only going to be um I don't think that that'll be more than 2 3 4 years at the most because so many other people including Vertex are working on a workaround to eliminate the need for immunosuppression. I have the link uh in the comments section if you want to read about this program or possibly getting into clinical trials there. And uh we wish you the best. We'll have another great video for you here in a few days here on
9:13 Type 1 Diabetic Warriors. See you then.
