Interesting speculation from you... do I detect a future in research for you? Obviously this kind of virus research has not yet developed into anything helpful for us so far, but there are many kinds of research happening right now. Many major hospitals have research centers, and many of those are working with autoimmune issues and with viruses and reactions to viruses. On this forum, we are not researchers, so I personally cannot answer the question of whether this is possible or even if it is reasonable. But many studies are working on cures for type 1 diabetes, and some are even doing human testing. One I know of was calling for human volunteers a few years ago -- it was working with proteins that had been discovered in lab animals to stimulate the animals to begin producing their own insulin when they were type 1 animals. The question being researched was whether people would respond the same way, by growing insulin-producing cells. Also, if this happened, they needed to see what would happen to those cells. Would our damaged immune systems attack the new cells and kill them off, or would they continue to produce insulin? I have read of other research projects also dealing with proteins. Not any so far dealing with attempts to use proactive viruses to create insulin-producing cells. Viruses at this point cannot be trained to stay in just one area of the body, as far as I know. But I am just a lay-person who reads a lot, so if any readers are in medical research and have any info on this issue, feel free to disagree with me.
Obviously there are also other side effects to study when looking at any possible cure. But for the first time in my life, there are studies that look promising. You sound intelligent and you also sound as if you have done a lot of reading on medical subjects related to diabetes. I would encourage you to put that energy into future education so maybe you can become one of the researchers. It would be wonderful to be part of a team who happens to stumble upon the right answer. Good luck to you.
research is one of my possible futures, right now i either want to be a biomedical engineer, immunologist, astrophysicist, or astronautical engineer