Project Abstracts - Enhancement Center

John Niland, PhD, City of Hope, Investigator

Start Date: September 15, 2014

 

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Abstract

The Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) was established to support innovative and collaborative research into how human beta cells are lost in type 1 diabetes (T1D), and to find pioneering strategies to protect and replace functional beta cell mass in humans. This Network consists of five consortia, each with a distinct focus complementary in scope, actively working to achieve this goal. The science brought to bear is multidisciplinary, technically challenging, and requires intensive efforts in order to make innovative and translational breakthroughs in preventing and curing T1D. To advance the work, this application establishes a Human Islet Research Enhancement Center (HIREC) to provide the administrative leadership, a centralized organizational infrastructure, an information technology platform, and a research dissemination engine to address the burgeoning needs of the HIRN for the next five years. The HIREC will replace and leverage the efforts and investments of the HIRN Coordinating and Bioinformatics Centers, which investigators in this proposal established in 2014. The overall objective of the HIREC is to cultivate and facilitate team science within HIRN. The following specific aims of this application are proposed to provide Meetings, Opportunities, Resources, and Exchange (MORE) to HIRN: 1) Provide research operations and organizational services to support scientific meetings, annual retreats, workshops, committees, working groups, and panels, 2) Facilitate and accelerate new research paths through funding opportunities and collaboration with other T1D and related communities, 3) Enhance a modern technology platform to provide and preserve access to HIRN materials, data, and other resources, using available or expanded vocabularies, ontologies, identifiers, and data formats, and 4) Catalyze collaboration and innovation in T1D research through the exchange of ideas, findings, and data generated in HIRN. Delivering MORE to HIRN will facilitate the ultimate goal of creating permanent preventive and curative therapies in T1D.

Publications

• 3D imaging of human pancreas suggests islet sizeand endocrine composition influence their loss intype 1 diabetes
• Insulin post-transcriptional regulation via PARP12-mediated ADP- ribosylation
• Engineered vasculature induces functional maturation of pluripotent stem cell-derived islet organoids
• DEC1 Regulates Human β Cell Functional Maturation and Circadian Rhythm
• Chimeric anti-HLA antibody receptor engineered human regulatory T cells suppress alloantigen-specific B cells from pre-sensitized transplant recipients
• Islet single-cell transcriptomic profiling during obesity-induced beta cell expansion in female mice