Source: Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF)
Date: January 25, 2008
Summary:
Researchers in Belgium have significantly advanced the discovery of a pancreatic progenitor cell with the capacity to generate new insulin-producing beta cells. If the finding made in mice holds for humans, the newfound progenitor cells may represent "an obvious target for therapeutic regeneration of beta cells in diabetes," the researchers report in the Jan. 25 issue of the research journal Cell, a publication of Cell Press. In people with type 1 diabetes, blood sugar rises due to a loss of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body use glucose for energy.
