Andrew Stewart, MD, the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine and Director of Mount Sinai’s Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute led a team of scientists who discovered a novel mechanism that regulates the replication of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Their findings provided novel working models describing the control of cell cycle progression in the human beta cell. These discoveries offer new insights into possible therapeutic approaches to stimulate the regeneration of pancreatic beta cells in patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
Over the past year, substantial progress has been made using high-throughput drug screens to identify novel drugs that induce human beta cells to proliferate. In addition, researchers, led by Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, and Neuroscience, recently discovered that impairment in insulin action in the brain may be one of the earliest defects that occurs in obese patients who eventually develop diabetes, according to findings that published in Cell Metabolism.
Mount Sinai also established and expanded its Type 1 diabetes basic immunology research program, led by Yaron Tomer, MD, FACP, Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease. Dr. Tomer’s group discovered that epigenetic changes, which are changes in the way genes work when they are not mutated, play a key role in the development of Type 1 diabetes, in a study published in the Journal of Autoimmunity.
The group studying Type 1 diabetes immunology is expanding. Among the leading new recruits is Dirk Homann, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, an expert on Type 1 diabetes immunology, who joined the Division from the University of Colorado. The Institute is also creating a program to advance the study of bariatric surgery and diabetes with William B. Inabnet III, MD, Chair, Department of Surgery, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, a world-renowned leader in the field of minimally invasive endocrine and laparoscopic surgery.
****