Research Area
Diabetes

Grant Type
Network

Year
2003

Abstract

The overall goals of the proposed network are to foster collaborative research directed to contributing to knowledge that will lead to the prevention and cure of diabetes. The mechanisms that we will employ to accomplish this goal is to (1) hold annual islet research meeting. (2) Develop research cores (imaging core, molecular biology and viral core, islet isolation and cell culture core, and islet function core) with a goal increasing cooperation between investigators as well as productivity in research. (3) Collectively seek to address the following goals: (a) to establish the regulation (new islet formation, beta cell replication within islets, islet senescence) of islet turnover, (b) to determine if mechanisms providing islet input (new islet formation) are intact in patients with type-1 diabetes, (c) to determine the mechanisms regulating insulin secretion at the level of the single beta cell and how these are disrupted in beta cells that are chronically over stimulated, (d) to identify the mechanisms responsible for increased beta cell apoptosis in type-2 diabetes and seek methods to prevent or reverse these first in animal models and then humans, (e) in collaboration with our partners at UCSF and UCSD to establish the efficacy of induction of immune tolerance on recovery of beta cell mass in animal models, and (f) with the imaging center at UCLA to develop methods to quantify functional beta cell mass in vivo in humans.