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Stem Cells and Diabetes

The Present

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Background

Diabetes affects more people and causesmore deaths each year than breastcancer and AIDS combined.The American Diabetes Associationestimates that 16 million people, 5.9% of

the U.S. population, currently has sometype of diabetes.

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What is diabetes?

group of diseases

abnormally high levels of glucose in thebloodpossible complications include blindness,stroke, kidney failure, heart disease, poorcirculation, and amputation

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Type 1 Diabetes

juvenile-onsettypically affects children and young adultsimmune system attacks and destroys beta cells ( cells) in the islets ofLangerhans of the pancreas that normallyproduce insulinglucose does not enter the cells andtherefore accumulates in the blood

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Role of Pancreas in Diabetes

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What is insulin? peptide hormonesynthesized within the cells of the islets of

Langerhans located in the pancreasaffects metabolism and other body functionscauses cells in the liver, muscle, and fat

tissue to take up glucose from thebloodstream

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Role of Pancreas in Diabetes

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What are adult stem cells?

They are:undifferentiated cells that occur indifferentiated tissueable to make identical copies ofthemselves

able to yield specialized cell types of thetissue from which they originateddo not replicate indefinitely in culture

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Researchers are Investigating:

Is it possible to activate the differentiationof adult stem cells present in thepancreas in order to produce neededinsulin in type I diabetics?What advantage/disadvantage would thishave over organ/islet transplantation orinsulin injection?

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Researchers Would Need to Know:

Are there adult stem cells present in thepancreas that differentiate into beta cells?

Are adult pancreatic beta cells formed byself-duplication, stem cell differentiation,

or a combination of the two processes?

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Mouse-Model Study

A pulse-chase experiment performed

by Professor Douglas Melton and histeam provides important informationabout how beta cells are replaced.

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Keep in m ind that cells are

replaced by:Adult stem cells

Mitotic division of existing cellsCombination of the two