inp.polri.go.id - Jakarta. Vice Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono revealed a new breakthrough in genetic therapy to treat diabetes. He explained the important role of the pancreas in the body's metabolism.

"The pancreas produces insulin, and this insulin is a substance needed to transport sugar into cells. If sugar does not enter the cells due to impaired pancreatic function or insulin resistance, the patient's sugar will gradually accumulate in the blood and if taken, the blood sugar will increase," explained Dante on Monday (8/25/2025).

Dante stated that conventional insulin therapy and pancreas transplants still have many limitations.

"One way to make a breakthrough is to transplant the pancreas into diabetes patients who need insulin. However, this pancreas transplant is difficult because for each pancreas donor from a diabetes patient who will receive a pancreas transplant, one acceptor requires four donors," explained the Vice Minister of Health.

As an alternative, Vice Minister Dante has researched an artificial pancreas developed using biomolecular technology.

He explained that biomolecular technology is one way to obtain pancreatic beta cells that are used to create an artificial pancreas.

In addition, Dante also explained that pancreatic recovery using the artificial pancreas method can be assisted by zinc finger protein-444 (Zfp444), which will stimulate cells to produce new pancreatic beta cells.

Therefore, he concluded that basic research has found that diabetes can be cured with biomolecular technology.

"Clinical research that will be tested in the future is testing animal models of diabetes and developing a delivery model to ensure it remains safe, and this clinical research has been tested on several human subjects," said the Deputy Health Minister.

He hopes this discovery can be utilized by the wider public, especially in alleviating the problem of diabetes in Indonesia.

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