Since 2004, hopes for a functional cure for diabetes have centered on the Chicago Project. Led by Jose Oberholzer, the director of cell and pancreas transplantation at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, the international effort includes doctors and scientists from France, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, Canada, and the United States. Doctors, however, are dependent on a limited number of pancreases from deceased donors–which is why Oberholzer is trying to multiply the number of crucial islet cells once they are harvested from a pancreas.

“This is not an easy endeavor,” Oberholzer says. “When you make them grow, you may induce changes that make the cell less functional. You may even create a cancer cell. It’s been tedious work for ten years now.”

Should he succeed, Oberholzer would solve one significant problem related to islet transplantation. Today, 20.8 million diabetics need islet cells, but each of the 6,000 annual donors can help only one diabetic. Oberholzer is currently trying to double and triple the number of diabetics that can be helped, but he hopes to one day make the cells multiply by the hundreds. The next stage of the project entails protecting the implanted islet cells so that the body doesn’t reject them as alien invaders. After successful trials in animals, Oberholzer and his Chicago Project collaborators have begun human testing in Italy with promising results.