Researchers at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Medical School have uncovered a process that locks the body’s metabolism in a diabetic state after only relatively limited exposure to high glucose levels.

In a fundamental discovery that someday may help cure type 1 diabetes by allowing people to grow their own insulin-producing cells for a damaged or defective pancreas, medical researchers here have reported that they have engineered adult stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood to produce insulin.