Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

People with advanced type 2 diabetes (T2D) often rely on daily insulin treatments to lower their blood sugar levels. However, it is difficult to dose insulin perfectly, and blood sugar levels commonly fall too low from accidental insulin overdose. What's more, the pancreas does not release enough of a hormone called glucagon in T2D individuals, which is responsible for bringing blood sugar levels back up when they drop too low. Glucagon provides a critical service, since low blood sugar can be fatal within hours if not treated. We do not know why this problem with glucagon happens in T2D, but it may be linked to another pancreatic hormone, called somatostatin. We think that the pancreas may be releasing too much somatostatin, which is blocking the normal release of glucagon when blood sugar drops too low. To test this theory, we will be using live cells from donated human pancreases and making these cells diabetic in the laboratory to directly measure the amount of glucagon and somatostatin they release in a setting of low blood sugar. We will also be collaborating with a Canadian pharmaceutical company to test a new compound for its ability to reverse the action of somatostatin on glucagon in T2D pancreas cells. This research will help us to understand why glucagon-releasing cells malfunction in T2D and whether we can restore this function to prevent low blood sugar from imperfect insulin dosing.