Hopefully in the future, although there is still a way to go . For example there are promising studies in animal models where they can use stem cells to generate new (and functional) insulin producing cells in the pancreas – there is still a lot of research to be done before these approaches could be used in humans though, and some ethical considerations!
As Natalie has pointed out, there has been some promising developments from using stem cell therapies recently. Unfortunately there are a lot of ethical, safety and technical considerations to be worked out first. While we now have the technology to make stem cells without taking them from foetal tissue, we still need to test how they would behave inside long term inside a person long term.
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