Stem Cell Therapies for Treating Diabetes

As of 2019, more than 463 million people in the world live with diabetes. This is a serious threat to global health and is certainly a big issue in terms of economic impact. In the past decades, there has been active research into using stem cell therapy to treat diabetes, such as type 1 or type 2 diabetes. In this Topical Collection, we define stem cells broadly as unique immature cells that harbor an immense potential to differentiate into various cell types of the body. They can originate from tissues such as the human embryo, placenta, umbilical cord, bone marrow, or blood cells. Since the discovery and identification of these various types of stem cells in the human body, there have been immense efforts to generate human pancreatic islets or insulin-producing beta cells from these varied stem cells, for the purpose of restoring euglycemia. More recently, methodologies to make human islet or beta-like cells have matured significantly. It appears that the human stem cell field is very close to using stem cell-derived islets or beta cells to treat or even cure diabetes. In view of these significant advances and 2021 being the 100th anniversary for the discovery of insulin, we decided to commission this timely Topical Collection, in the hope that stem cell-based therapy will pave the way for the next century in moving the field closer toward an eventual cure for diabetes.

Dr. Adrian Kee Keong Teo
Dr. Jun Shirakawa
Collection Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the collection website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cells is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.