Special Guest Seminar: Differentiation, de-differentiation and re-differentiation of pancreatic beta cells

Host: Dr. Achia Urbach, achia.urbach@biu.ac.il

Abstract

How does a newly formed stem or progenitor cell "know" it had reached its full differentiation capacity, and should assume its mature function? What part of the signal towards terminal differentiation comes from the cell's interactions with its surrounding environment, and what is encoded in the blueprint of its intrinsic developmental program? And how is this functionally mature state, once achieved, sustained throughout adult life, or tip off balance and erode in degenerative disease?

I will discuss our lab’s efforts to discover the regulatory circuits controlling the development, maintenance, collapse and recovery of the fully differentiated, functionally mature pancreatic beta cell state in mice and humans. Efforts to identify early markers of beta cell de-differentiation in type-2 diabetes, and the role of the beta cells in the initiation of type-1 diabetes will also be discussed.