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Treatment · Diabetes

Hypoimmune islet cell therapy

Transplanted insulin-producing cells edited to be invisible to the immune system, so they can survive without immunosuppressive drugs.

Phase I cell therapyhypoimmunediabetes
Clinical research Being tested in people in registered clinical trials. Being in trials is not evidence that a treatment works or is safe.

Simple explanation

Replacement insulin-producing cells work — but the immune system destroys them unless the patient takes powerful drugs that suppress it, which carry their own serious risks. These cells are edited to remove the markers the immune system checks and to display a signal that says 'leave me alone'. In early work, transplanted cells survived and produced insulin without any immunosuppression.

Go deeper

Hypoimmune engineering knocks out B2M and CIITA to remove MHC class I and II and overexpresses CD47 to inhibit natural killer and macrophage clearance. Sana Biotechnology reported survival and insulin production from hypoimmune-modified allogeneic islet cells transplanted without immunosuppression, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Sources

Written by The CRISPR Atlas editorial team Last updated Aug 19, 2026

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Technologies

CRISPR-Cas9

Diseases

Diabetes

Genes

B2M

Companies

Sana Biotechnology
Educational information only This page is a reference, not medical advice. Research and regulatory status change; check the last-updated date above and confirm anything important against the primary sources listed.