Research

Pancreas development and cancer

Our goal is to understand how the pancreas forms during development. The long term medical purpose is to use this information to generate replacement cells for patients suffering from diabetes and to understand pancreatic cancer progression.

 

To address these questions, we use the mouse and chick model organisms.

-       We have shown that the pancreas primordium is induced by signals from the environment including FGF4 and retinoic acid. These molecules have since been used to generate beta cells from embryonic stem cells.

-       We have discovered new targets of two transcription factors that allow for pancreas progenitor expansion and subsequent exocrine differentiation  (Ptf1a) and endocrine cell induction (Ngn3).

-       Ongoing research based on imaging and on the use of genetically modified mice  explores the importance of pancreas architecture in the differentiation of insulin-producing b cells, with relevance to b cell production from ES/iPS cells and to monogenic diabetes.

-       We have established optical coherence microscopy as a useful mean to follow diabetes progression live in a single animal.

 

More...