Pancreas bioengineering at the MUHC receives funding boost
A new research grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) is set to provide a significant boost to a collaborative diabetes research effort led by MUHC investigator Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg. The funds will be used to develop an innovative bioengineering process for the production of pancreatic endocrine tissue to treat diabetes. The JDRF and CIHR funding partnership is estimated to be worth approximately CAD $2 million over five years.
"Currently there are only two options for diabetics—daily injections or organ transplantation," says Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, A.G. Thompson Chair of Surgical Research at the MUHC and Professor of Surgery and Medicine at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. "This new funding will allow us to bioengineer new insulin-producing tissue in the laboratory, which can then be implanted into diabetics." This work complements additional research being conducted by Dr. Rosenberg, which aims to stimulate the regeneration of pancreatic cells within the body.
Diabetes is a chronic condition that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin (type 1 diabetes) or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces (type 2 diabetes). Most people with diabetes have type 2, which also includes a loss of insulin-producing cells.
It is widely believed that a diabetes epidemic is underway. An estimated 30 million people worldwide had diabetes in 1985. A decade later, this number had increased to 135 million. In 2000 the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 177 million people worldwide suffered from diabetes. This number is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025.
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