Latest Beta cell Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online A hormone known as betatrophin could be the key to new, more effective treatments for type 2 diabetes, researchers from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered. Writing in the journal Cell, HSCI co-director Doug Melton and postdoctoral fellow Peng Yi report betatrophin causes the production rate of insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells to increase by as much as 30 times normal levels. According to the study,...

New platform mimics native pancreas, contains real cells to normalize blood sugar in real time MIAMI, Fla., March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scientists from the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Miami are taking a quantum leap toward a biological cure for diabetes by unveiling the DRI BioHub, a bioengineered "mini organ" that contains lifesaving insulin-producing cells that can sense blood sugar and release the precise amount of insulin needed in real...

The origin of beta-cells, the insulin-producing cells in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, has been controversial, and now new imaging and cell analysis technology shows that a recent study that seemed to have identified the progenitors of these important cells may have been in error, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. "This is a fundamental question for my field," said...

A new therapeutic approach to diabetes that combines insulin and an inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) betacellulin could limit the progression of diabetic macular edema (DME), Cleveland Clinic researcher Bela Anand-Apte, MD, PhD, said at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting, on Dec. 17 in San Francisco. The study, conducted with insulin-dependent diabetic mice, showed that by thwarting "cross-talk" between insulin and betacellulin (BTC), which promotes the...

NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Islet Sciences, Inc., (OTCBB: ISLT) a biotechnology company engaged in the research, development and commercialization of patented technologies in the field of transplantation therapy for patients with diabetes, today announced the publishing of results from a study regarding the production and function of IL-12 in Islets and Beta cells. The conclusion and interpretation of the study is that these data identify beta cells as a local source of...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A recent study, conducted by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their partners at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and the Novartis Institutes for Bio Medical Research, has managed to identify a specific genetic mechanism connected to mutations in the WFS1 gene that affects insulin-secreting beta cells. It is believed that this discovery will be paramount in increasing the understanding...

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Islet Sciences, Inc., (OTCBB: ISLT) a biotechnology company engaged in the research, development and commercialization of patented technologies in the field of transplantation therapy for patients with diabetes, today announced that it has exclusively licensed technology from Winthrop University Hospital. This technology is complimentary to the early Beta cell destruction diagnostic that Islet Sciences licensed last month. "In the course of...

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers recently discovered that a tuberculosis vaccine could decrease autoimmunity and boost insulin production in patients who have long-term Type 1 diabetes. The vaccine has been utilized for the past 90 years and scientists believe that it could help eliminate the necessity of having insulin injections for patients with Type 1 diabetes. With Type 1 diabetes, patients normally need to inject insulin on a daily basis so...

Treatment with generic vaccine kills autoimmune cells, temporarily restoring insulin production A phase I clinical trial has confirmed that use of a generic vaccine to raise levels of an immune system modulator can cause the death of autoimmune cells targeting the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas and temporarily restore insulin secretion in human patients with type 1 diabetes. Results of the study – led by Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital...

UCSF study suggests stress-amplifying 'TXNIP' protein may be powerful new drug target At its most fundamental level, diabetes is a disease characterized by stress -- microscopic stress that causes inflammation and the loss of insulin production in the pancreas, and system-wide stress due to the loss of that blood-sugar-regulating hormone. Now, researchers led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have uncovered a new key player in amplifying this stress in...