Pancreatic Islets: From Development to Transplantation

描述（由申请人提供）： 这次会议将是一个关于胰岛发育生物学和胰岛移植的综合项目。这两个领域都是几个科学学科（发育生物学，干细胞，转录因子，移植，细胞生物学，基因调控和糖尿病）的前沿，是激烈的科学调查的主题。胰岛移植是一种新兴的糖尿病治疗方法，由于缺乏足够数量的胰岛用于移植而受到严重阻碍。了解胰岛发育的一个主要目标是从干细胞（成人或胚胎）产生新的胰岛。与这两个领域相关的挑战是对控制正常胰岛发育和功能的机制的不完全理解，以及缺乏关于移植后胰岛细胞分化、存活和功能的信息。拟议的计划将通过审查这些迅速扩大的领域的进展和讨论克服这些障碍的战略来关注这些科学挑战。拟议的计划将填补一个独特的需要，因为以前的科学会议集中在一个主题或其他，并没有汇集在这两个领域的领导人。计划委员会由两名具有胰岛移植专业知识的研究人员和两名具有胰岛发育专业知识的研究人员组成，他们已经构建了该计划，以促进科学家之间的互动，从而加快这些科学领域的进展。 大多数糖尿病都是由于胰岛中产生胰岛素的细胞的数量或功能异常。这次会议将汇集科学家和医生讨论如何正常胰岛的形式和胰岛移植如何可以用来治疗糖尿病。本次会议将促进不同科学学科的互动，努力解决我们对健康和疾病中胰岛的知识差距。

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.