Mohammad Massumi, Postdoctoral Fellow
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According to the WHO report in 2011, approximately 350 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes. This number of diabetic patients was supposed to be in 2030, implying the dramatic growing of diabetes in the world population. Insulin injections are the most common therapy; however as Sir Frederick Banting, one of the discoverers of Insulin said " insulin is not a cure for diabetes; it is a treatment".
As diabetes cell therapy does not require functional integration of transplanted cells into damaged pancreas, and transplantation of insulin-producing cells into ectopic sites can restore the hyperglycemia, it is rational to anticipate successful cure of diabetes with insulin-producing cells derived from pluripotent stem cells.
In my project in the Nagy Lab, we have focused in generation of Glucose-sensing insulin secreting β- cells from human pluripotent stem cells (including embryonic, and induced pluripotent stem cells developed in the Nagy lab by transposon system) and other cell types. To that end, we will directly program/ reprogram the cells through genetic and/or epigenetic manipulation of the cells and finally we will analyze the responsiveness of the cells to the glucose levels in vivo and in vitro.
Working on diabetic field in the city where gifted the insulin to the word is really fascinating and inspiring. Every morning when I get off from College subway station and walk through the College street to get to the Nagy lab I am thinking that 90 years ago when Sir Banting was walking through the same street to get to his lab, he also was thinking in the same subject " Cure of diabetes", isn't astonishing?
