Diabetes

How insulin-producing cells show their age

April 6, 2017

Adapted from a Joslin Diabetes Center press release

Diabetes researchers have puzzled for decades about why insulin-producing beta cells in one pancreatic islet often look and behave quite differently than their counterparts in the same islet or in nearby islets. Using newly identified cellular markers of aging, Joslin Diabetes Center scientists now have shown that this diversity may be driven at least in part by differently aged beta cell populations within the pancreas. 

Additionally, the Joslin team demonstrated that the aging of beta cells, with associated losses of...

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Helping beta cells divide

March 17, 2017

 

Scientists identify a key barrier to proliferation of inuslin-producing cells

If you become resistant to insulin, a condition that is a precursor to type 2 diabetes, your body tries to compensate by producing more of the “beta” cells in the pancreas that produce the critical hormone. Researchers have long sought to understand why these cells often fail to proliferate in people who go on to develop the disease. Studying both humans and mice, scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have pinpointed one key biological mechanism that can prevent...

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A pill to shed fat?

December 8, 2014


Harvard researchers have created a system using human stem cells to screen for compounds that have the potential to turn white, or “bad,” fat cells into brown, or “good,” fat cells. Pictured are human pluripotent stem cell-derived fat cells. (Photo...

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J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Evotec form strategic diabetes alliance based on HSCI discoveries

July 11, 2012

A portfolio of small molecules and biologics has been licensed by Harvard University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from the laboratory of Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director Doug Melton, co-chair of Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, to the German biotech firm Evotec and international giant Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a Johnson & Johnson company, as the central focus of a new program to pursue treatments and cures for diabetes.

“Our collaboration with Doug Melton’s laboratory has been extremely successful on multiple levels,” said Evotec...

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HSCI co-director Douglas Melton and Evotec collaborate on diabetes

November 6, 2013

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Co-director Douglas Melton, PhD, and Evotec AG have entered into their second research collaboration to find biological pathways and signals that could be therapeutically relevant to diabetic patients.

The objective of this new collaboration, dubbed “TargetEEM” (Target Enteroendocrine Mechanisms), is to screen disease-relevant animal models for novel pathways and targets that have the potential to repair mechanisms involved in insulin resistance and abnormal...

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