Our resource hub is home to a wealth of articles, stories and videos about managing and living with type 1 diabetes.
Place your order for our free information packs that support adults and children who have been recently diagnosed.
Our researchers are working on different ways to develop a cure for type 1 diabetes - from growing insulin-producing beta cells in labs to hacking the immune system.
Learn about the technologies that can deliver insulin automatically when needed. And discover the next generation of insulins that are currently being developed.
Find the perfect cards to make your season’s greetings go even further. Every pack purchased will help fund vital research and support for people living with type 1 diabetes.
Researchers need your help. By taking part in research studies and clinical trials, you will help them make progress to improve lives and find a cure for type 1 diabetes.
Our ambitious new roadmap is aimed at driving significant advancements in type 1 diabetes research, treatment, and care.
Your donation helps support people living with type 1 diabetes and funds the best treatment and cure research.
We provide a wealth of information and free resources to help you support and empower your patients or students.
Take our free course for schools to learn more about supporting pupils with type 1 diabetes in educational settings.
Home > About Breakthrough T1D UK & our impact > Our research > Research projects > Improving lab-grown, insulin-producing cells for treatments in type 1 diabetes
View Research Project
T1D occurs when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin.
Scientists are working on a new way to replace these lost insulin-producing cells (beta cells) using lab-grown cells. Early studies have shown that this approach could help people make enough of their own insulin again if they are given enough of these cells.
However, lab-grown cells do not work as well as natural pancreatic cells. Dr Shilleh is trying to understand how to make these lab-grown cells healthier, stronger and better at controlling blood sugar.
The team will grow clusters of pancreatic cells (islets) in the laboratory, including insulin-producing cells, and check that these islets are healthy and respond correctly to glucose. They will then compare these laboratory-grown islets with islets from human donors, studying nearly 500 genes in the process, including many GPCRs.
This will allow them to create the first detailed map of GPCR activity in both human and lab-grown pancreatic islets. Once this map has been created, they will analyse samples from five independent lab-grown batches and five human donors, to ensure the findings are reliable and consistent.
Ali said:
My research has two main aims: first, to understand the key functional differences between stem cell derived islets (SC-islets) and human islets; and second, to use this knowledge to improve the performance and longevity of SC-islets upon transplantation.My current Breakthrough T1D-funded project combines advanced imaging and gene-expression analysis to create a detailed map of gene activity within SC-islets. This will help reveal how their cellular organization and function differ from those of healthy human islets. Ultimately, this work aims to support the development of safer and more effective replacement cells that could provide improved long-term blood-glucose control for people living with T1D.
My research has two main aims: first, to understand the key functional differences between stem cell derived islets (SC-islets) and human islets; and second, to use this knowledge to improve the performance and longevity of SC-islets upon transplantation.
My current Breakthrough T1D-funded project combines advanced imaging and gene-expression analysis to create a detailed map of gene activity within SC-islets. This will help reveal how their cellular organization and function differ from those of healthy human islets. Ultimately, this work aims to support the development of safer and more effective replacement cells that could provide improved long-term blood-glucose control for people living with T1D.
By learning more about GPCRs and how they differ between lab-grown and human islets, Dr. Shilleh hopes to identify new targets for drugs or cell engineering approaches that can improve the function and survival of transplanted cells.
The study may also reveal new ways that pancreatic cells communicate with each other, leading to fresh ideas for protecting beta cells and improving diabetes treatments.
In the long term, this work could help create stem cell therapies that work as well as, or even better than, donor islet transplants.
Dr Christiana Lekka, of the University of Exeter, is studying how type 1 diabetes (T1D) may affect the overall structure of the pancreas. The end goal of her research is to better understand how T1D can affect the entire organ, rather than just the insulin-producing cells (beta cells).
Dr Rachel Sumner and her team at the University of Bristol are investigating diabetes burnout, and how better to understand it. Diabetes burnout affects around one third of people with type 1 diabetes (T1D), and although known about, it is poorly understood. The researchers aim to find investigate the biological and psychosocial impacts of diabetes burnout, to further help future studies.
Dr Rachael Hughson-Gill is a researcher at the University of Lincoln, who is studying how body image issues affect young women with type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Dr Gordon Sloan and his team at the University of Sheffield are researching a new method to identify nerve pain (neuropathy) in teens and young adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Would you like to visit the website of our {{ affiliate_country }} affiliate to complete your action?
