My six year old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes two weeks ago. I understand that beta cell transplants are not currently available or practical, but is there a way to harvest her cells and freeze them, similar to cord blood, for possible use in the years to come?

I would encourage you to ask these questions to your diabetes team. They know you and your child and can explain how such procedures are still mostly experimental although there is much hope that research will progress more quickly now than in the past. Many of us believe that much more research progress would be made if the NIH agreed to allow such funding, but the current administration and Congress are against this type of project. If the American people want faster progress, then they will have to convince our government leaders that this is their desire. We, and most others, do not suggest that you spend a lot of time, effort and money at this point since current knowledge suggest that there may be stem cells always available. But, this is a dynamic field with lots of innovations and research findings all the time.

SB