A cure for Type 1 diabetes is a step closer after scientists managed to halt the condition for six months thanks to insulin-producing cells.
Experts from US hospitals and institutions including Harvard University managed to transplant cells into mice, which immediately began producing insulin.
The team was also able to show they could prevent the cells being rendered useless by the body's own immune system, which was effectively "switched off" thanks to scientific work.
It means a cure for Type 1 diabetes could be much closer.
Scientists are now working to replicate the results in people with the condition.
The findings build on the news at the end of 2014 that experts had discovered how to make huge quantities of insulin-producing cells.
The man who led that breakthrough - Harvard professor Doug Melton, who has been trying to find a cure for the disease since his son Sam was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a baby - also worked on the new studies.
The human islet cells used for the new research were generated from human stem cells developed by Prof Melton.
Following implantation in mice, the cells immediately began producing insulin in response to blood glucose levels and were able to maintain blood glucose within a healthy range for 174 days - the length of the study.
The findings are published in the journals Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology and were made possible with funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Senior author of the research, Daniel Anderson, who is associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of chemical engineering, said: "We are excited by these results, and are working hard to advance this technology to the clinic."
