Yesterday it was announced the new members affiliated with NCMM and the Nordic EMBL Partnership in Molecular Medicine, following an open call announced in the spring and with deadline in September, and to our greatest pride, Simona is one of…
The second project of the lab is funded by the Research Council of Norway, as a Young Talent Research Project. This 4-year project is aiming at characterizing the cellular and molecular basis of the gradual failure of insulin-producing β-cells in…
Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases defined by high blood sugar values caused by the inability of the body to produce and/or use insulin. All forms of diabetes are ultimately characterized by a decrease in the number of functional insulin-producing cells (β-cells), hence a cure for insulin-dependent diabetes types will require their regeneration or replacement. Generally, the most efficient regenerative strategies are the ones involving cell self-renewal capacity. Nevertheless, in mammals, the β-cell proliferative capacity is very low after birth and decreases even further with age. The overall aim of this proposal is to elucidate and reverse the molecular age-switch controlling the gradual impairment of β-cell self-renewal potential by using two murine models of monogenic diabetes.
MODY (maturity-onset diabetes of the young) is caused by pancreatic beta cell dysfunction due to a single gene mutation affecting both the prenatal and postnatal pancreas development. Importantly, more than 90 % of MODY mutation carriers will develop diabetes during…