Pancreas regeneration for diabetes cure

**New Projects On Offer for 2025** The development of diabetes involves pathogenetic processes that either destroy the β-cells of the pancreas or result in resistance to insulin action. Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease that selectively destroys insulin producing β-cells in the pancreas. Even though symptoms usually do not appear before 80% of the β-cell mass has been destroyed, absolute destruction of these cells leads to the dependence on exogenous insulin administration for survival. In patients with Type 2 diabetes (T2D), insulin is either produced in insufficient quantities so the response to insulin is weak or it is produced in normal amounts, but the target organs become insulin resistant. Two solutions aimed at replacing the damaged β-cell mass in diabetic patients exist, such as whole pancreas or islets transplantation. Although efficient, these therapies face the shortage of organ donors together with the associated side-effects of immunosuppressive drugs. Consequently, current research focuses on the replacement of the lost β-cell in diabetic patients using several approaches and cell sources. A potential source of β-cells was previously demonstrated by our team with the discovery of α-cell plasticity and the ability of α-cell to convert into insulin-producing cells by cell reprogramming. More recently, and equally important was the team's finding that the α- to β cell regeneration observed induces the re-expression of pancreas progenitors in ductal cells and their differentiation into insulin producing cells is a result of the removal of an epigenetic barrier, published recently in Regenerative Medicine (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41536-021-00119-1). This project aims to establish new protocols and identify chemical compounds that trigger pancreas regeneration for curing diabetes.