Pancreatic Islets

The title of the Nature Communications article announces a stunning achievement, “Human pancreatic beta-like cells converted from fibroblasts.” Researchers from the Gladstone Institutes and University of California at San Francisco where able to induce endoderm progenitor cells (more developed than pluripotent stem cells) to become insulin-secreting cells similar to pancreatic beta cells. This opens a new avenue of therapy for both allo- and auto-transplantation of insulin producing cells to a recipient’s liver. MORE

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