Pancreatic Islets: From Development to Transplantation

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed meeting will be an integrated program on pancreatic islet developmental biology and pancreatic islet transplantation. Both areas are on the forefront of several scientific disciplines (developmental biology, stem cells, transcription factors, transplantation, cell biology, gene regulation, and diabetes) and are the subject of intense scientific investigation. Islet transplantation, an emerging therapy for diabetes, is severely hampered by the lack of a sufficient number of islets for transplantation. A major goal of work to understand pancreatic islet development is the generation of new islets from stem cells (adult or embryonic). Challenges relevant to both fields are an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms controlling normal islet development and function and lack of information about islet cell differentiation, survival, and function after transplantation. The proposed program will focus on these scientific challenges by reviewing progress in these rapidly expanding fields and discussing strategies to overcome these obstacles. The proposed program will fill a unique need in that prior scientific meetings have focused on one topic or the other and have not brought together the leaders in both fields. The planning committee, consisting of two investigators with expertise in islet transplantation and two with expertise in pancreatic islet development, has structured the program to foster interaction between scientists and thus accelerate progress in these scientific areas. Abnormalities in number or function of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreatic islet are responsible for most forms of diabetes mellitus. This meeting will bring together scientists and physicians to discuss how the normal pancreatic islet forms and how transplantation of the pancreatic islet can be used to treat diabetes. This meeting will foster interactions of different scientific disciplines in an effort to address gaps in our knowledge about the pancreatic islet in health and disease.