Diabetes cure hopes boosted by mice tests

American scientists using experimental gene therapy on mice believe they may have found a cure for diabetes.

The scientists said the treatment, in which a gene was introduced in the animals that enabled their livers to produce insulin, cured them of the condition. The hope is to use the therapy on humans, although it is at an early stage.

Professor Lawrence Chan, who led the research at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, said: "It's a proof of principle. The exciting part is that mice are 'cured'."

Liver cells were induced to become beta cells, which produce insulin and three other hormones. Beta cells are normally found within small bodies embedded in the pancreas, called "islets".

Professor Chan's team used a doctored virus to carry the beta cell gene into the mouse liver cells. On its own, the gene partially corrected the disease. Combined with a biochemical that promotes growth, the diabetic mice were cured for at least four months.

Diabetes, which affects about 1.4 million Britons, occurs when glucose sugar is not used properly to fuel cells, and builds up in the blood. If not treated, a person with diabetes will lapse into a coma and die.