Problem: Type I diabetics have immune systems that destroy their own insulin-producing cells. Existing treatments require nasty drugs to keep this reaction under control, and stem cell treatment (while promising) doesn't really get around this problem.

Solution: Get the patient's own white blood cells to produce insulin. No, really:

Tantalising experiments that seem to have made human blood cells start producing insulin have raised the prospect of a new treatment for diabetes. Although the treatment has only been tried in mice so far, it might mean people can be cured with implants of their own cells.

As noted, the technique is in the preliminary stages, and stuff that works in mice has failed in humans before. Still, it's a new hope from a very strange angle.