Grant: Project Grant

Our vision is to establish a complete understanding of the biology of human beta cells, the cells that make and secrete insulin after a meal. The inability to produce enough insulin results in diabetes mellitus (DM), and affects over 13M Canadians. While it is widely held that treating DM will require improving the health of the human beta cell, our current knowledge of the basic properties of the human beta cell are lacking. We will use cutting-edge genetic technology to provide a complete understanding of how both mature adult human beta cells and their stem cell precursors grow, divide and secrete insulin. Furthermore, we will explore targeting a novel pathway we discovered that when activated helps to increase beta cell function in response to high sugar levels and promotes beta cell proliferation for prevention and treatment of DM.