Earlier this year, Jeffrey Millman, PhD received sub-award funding from JDRF to support his lab’s extensive research in advancing diabetes cell replacement therapy.
The scarcity of pancreas donors has severely limited the supply of insulin-producing islets for clinical transplantation, prompting the exploration of alternative sources.
Dr. Millman has pioneered approaches to generate lab-grown islets from stem cells for diabetes cell therapy. In addition, blood vessels play a crucial role in providing proper blood supply to the islets necessary for their survival and function, but vessels are currently absent from lab-grown islets.
Alongside collaborators, the Millman Lab will address this limitation by developing approaches to simultaneously generate islets with the necessary vascular cells. Dr. Millman expects that lab-grown islets with a built-in vasculature will improve the outcome upon transplantation in recipients with diabetes.
This research holds immense promise in advancing the field of cell replacement therapy, potentially providing a more abundant and mature source of insulin-producing cells for the effective treatment of diabetes.