Wudan Yan in Hippo Reads:
Yes, scientists at Harvard University have recently made a huge breakthrough in the treatment possibilities for Type I Diabetes, an inherited condition affecting over three million Americans that causes the body’s immune system to malfunction. Type I Diabetes destroys the pancreatic beta cells in the body that manufacture insulin, a hormone critical for processing sugars. Under current medical practice, people with Type I Diabetes must regularly check their blood sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin to keep levels in check, an imperfect process disruptive to routine life. For decades, researchers have tried to generate pancreatic beta cells that could be used to provide insulin for Type I patients.
Now, thanks to a research group led by Doug Melton, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard Medical School, they may in fact be closer to that goal: Melton’s talented team of scientists have generated functional human pancreatic beta cells from stem cells in large quantities (the paper reporting these findings was published inCell on October 9, 2014). Hippo Reads’s Science Correspondent Wudan Yan spoke with Felicia Pagliuca, a postdoc in Melton’s lab, about the work that went into this landmark study, the importance of collaboration, and where diabetes research will go from here.
WY: Thanks for chatting with Hippo Reads! We’re interested to know: how did you first get involved in this research?
Felicia Pagliuca: I had been doing my PhD at Cambridge University in the UK at the Gurdon Institute. I was conducting research in cancer biology at the time but [Doug] Melton came to Cambridge to give a seminar. By the end of that seminar, I was just blown away—completely inspired by his vision and what you could do with stem cells in the field of regenerative biology and the impact that could have on patients. I reached out to Doug and told him about my interest and background. We hit it off and I was fortunate enough to be offered an opportunity to work in his laboratory.
More here.