Diabetics across the world are pinning their hopes on a controversial experiment that was approved today which transfers pig cells into humans.
New Zealand has become the first country to officially allow clinical trials, which is hoped to transform the lives of people living with type-one diabetes.
Hayden Vink was diagnosed with type-one diabetes eight years ago and his life has not been the same since.
"Living with type-one diabetes involves multiple daily injections and constant monitoring of your blood sugar levels and thinking about what you eat and what exercise you are doing," Mr Vink says. "Just not having to worry about that constantly would be fantastic."
However, that is not the worst of it. Type-one diabetes can also shave a third off your life expectancy.
"A type-one diabetic lives on the edge the whole time," Professor Bob Elliot from Living Cell Technologies explains. "They're not sure what's going to happen to them in the next hour, the next day, the next week, the next ten years."
The government-approved clinical trials will transfer live cells from the pancreas of piglets into the patient's abdomen, where they will produce insulin on demand.
It is hoped that this will come close to a cure, taking the terrible sting out of the illness.
Living Cell Technologies has been working on this for 20 years, but it is still highly controversial.
"Disease in animals could be transmitted to humans and from there. go from human-to-human causing a pandemic," Phil Clayton from the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society warns.
It is hoped that a group of unique pigs from the Auckland Islands will be able to aid in the trials. The piegs have been isolated for 200 years, meaning that they are free from retroviruses.
The labs here have already had hundreds of emails from diabetics all over the world who jave been given fresh hope by news of the trial. The scientists will start recruiting suitable patients this week.
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