Love handles may be something you strive to lose, but Swiss scientists are using them to perform a feat that, until now, many scientists had thought impossible. They took stem cells from the belly fat of a 50-year-old man and genetically programmed them to turn into beta cells — the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas.

After being reprogrammed and being exposed to glucose, the new beta cells produced insulin just like natural beta cells.

Type 1 diabetes, which was once called juvenile diabetes, is usually diagnosed in children and young adults. Most experts believe it is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, resulting in the production of little or no insulin.

According to the American Diabetes Association, approximately 1.25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes.

For the new research, scientists designed a complex synthetic network of genes — genetic software — to recreate the growth factors vital to the differentiation that occurs in developing beta cells and to assure that their concentrations change at critical times during the growth process.

Researcher Martin Fussenegger says that it is essential to reproduce the natural processes as closely as possible in order to produce functioning beta cells: "The timing and the quantities of these growth factors are extremely important."

Fussenegger believes his process is a real breakthrough because it uses a synthetic gene network to reprogram genes to produce functioning beta cells. Until now, scientists have controlled stem cell differentiation processes by adding various chemicals and proteins using pipettes.

"It's not only really hard to add just the right quantities of these components at just the right time, it's also inefficient and impossible to scale up," he says. The new process, however, can convert three out of four adipose stem cells into beta cells.

Although the new beta cells look and function in similar ways to natural beta cells, they don't secrete as much insulin as natural beta cells.

Previous researchers have transplanted beta cells, but they always required the recipient to take immune-suppressing drugs to fight rejection.

"With our beta cells, there would likely be no need for this action, since we can make them using endogenous cell material taken from the patient's own body," Fussenegger says.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.