{"id":4774,"date":"2016-04-12T23:45:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T03:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2016-04-18T00:49:55","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T04:49:55","slug":"successfully-creating-insulin-producing-beta-cells-in-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/successfully-creating-insulin-producing-beta-cells-in-the-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Successfully creating insulin-producing beta cells in the lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/SMCC-english2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-110\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/SMCC-english2.jpg\" alt=\"SMCC-english2\" width=\"255\" height=\"126\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers have created insulin-producing cells in a petri dish for the first time, moving closer to finding a potential cure for diabetes. The researchers discovered a switch that makes it \u201cpossible to produce a functional human beta cell that&#8217;s responding almost as well as the natural thing,&#8221; according to Ronald Evans, senior author and a molecular biologist at the Salk Institute.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team discovered that a when a particular protein was provided to the cells, they were able to mature and produce insulin. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beta cells are found in the pancreas, and are responsible for producing and storing insulin. Diabetes occurs when these cells don\u2019t function properly. Scientists have worked to create new beta cells from stem cells, but this has proved difficult, as the juvenile beta cells would not mature. The team discovered that a when a particular protein was provided to the cells, they were able to mature and produce insulin. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell-metabolism\/abstract\/S1550-4131(16)30108-5?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413116301085%3Fshowall%3Dtrue\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research\u00a0paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0<em>Cell Metabolism\u00a0<\/em>on <strong>April 12<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michael Downes, Gene Expression Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California, U.S.A.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ronald Evans, Salk Institute, California, U.S.A.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have created insulin-producing cells in a petri dish for the first time, moving closer to finding a potential cure for diabetes. The researchers discovered a switch that makes it \u201cpossible to produce a functional human beta cell that&#8217;s responding almost as well as the natural thing,&#8221; according to Ronald Evans, senior author and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[2077,51,53],"class_list":["post-4774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-diabetes","tag-health","tag-medicine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1f0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4775,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions\/4775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}