Thursday, January 24, 2008

Research Newsflash: "β Cells Can Be Generated from Endogenous Progenitors in Injured Adult Mouse Pancreas"

An article in the January 25, 2008, issue of Cell describes research showing that progenitor beta cells exist in the mouse pancreas and that, when prompted by injury to the pancreas, the cells respond by growing and producing insulin. The authors are all associated with the JDRF Center for Beta Cell Therapy in Diabetes in Brussels, Belgium. (Yay, JDRF!) Read the original article or a summary at ScienceDaily for more info. If they find that this is also true for humans, it will be a very exciting discovery with many implications.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Maybe I should injur my pancrease?

Anonymous said...

Greatest article ever talking about beta cell stem cell issue. Sadly, many other researchers in this field only see the still image of replication of preexisting beta cells but do not know the dynamics of beta cell from born to mature to death. Born from hormone negative stem cells, migration, proliferation, adhesion to form islet cluster or joining preexisting islet and have local proliferation and differentiation. That is what happend during embryonic beta cell development. Why on earth the adult beta cells need another route for beta cell mass expansion?
Great work. Keep going