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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Apr 26, 2023; 15(4): 182-195
Published online Apr 26, 2023. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v15.i4.182
Human pluripotent stem cell-derived β cells: Truly immature islet β cells for type 1 diabetes therapy?
Helen Jiang, Fang-Xu Jiang
Helen Jiang, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
Fang-Xu Jiang, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia
Fang-Xu Jiang, School of Health and Medical Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth 6027, Australia
Author contributions: Jiang H wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Jiang FX conceived and designed the research; and all authors have edited, revised, reviewed and approved submission of the manuscript.
Supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, No. 4-2006-1025; Diabetes Australia Research Trust; and Telethon Perth Children’s Hospital Research Fund (TPCHRF) grant to Jiang FX.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Fang-Xu Jiang, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley WA 6009, Perth 6009, Australia. fang-xu.jiang@perkins.uwa.edu.au
Received: December 27, 2022
Peer-review started: December 27, 2022
First decision: January 6, 2023
Revised: January 30, 2023
Accepted: March 20, 2023
Article in press: March 20, 2023
Published online: April 26, 2023
Processing time: 119 Days and 23.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic condition of absolute or relative deficiency in insulin. Since the discovery of insulin 100 years ago, there has been slow progress in the treatment of type 1 DM (T1DM) in clinical practice. In the scientific community however, there is much interest and progression in the research of human pluripotent stem cell derived insulin producing β-like cells, pervasively known as stem cell-derived β cells (SC-β cells). If they are determined to be genuine, scalable and functionally matured, SC-β cells have the potential to cure T1DM through cell replacement therapy.