Recently a team from the Monash Department of Diabetes published in the Nature Journal ‘ Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy ‘ how their research could lead to the regeneration of insulin in pancreatic stem cells. As their findings could potentially benefit the 130,000 Type I diabetics in Australia and 30 per cent of Type II diabetics who are insulin dependent it received significant media attention. Diabetes is the fastest-growing illness in Australia and about 500 million people have diabetes worldwide with the potential complications of cardiovascular disease, renal failure, cerebrovascular disease, neuropathy, retinopathy, and lower limb amputation.  

Associate Professor Neale Cohen who is the director of diabetes clinical research at the Baker Heart and diabetes institute believes the research shows great potential. Currently, the research is being conducted by a carefully selected team lead by Professor Sam El-Osta and including Dr Ishant Khurana and Dr Al-Hasani and we will be discussing their work and objectives further with Ishant in this podcast. 

The research has discovered how to reawaken stem-like cells in the diabetic pancreas. Using an inhibitor of the protein called EZH2 which induces histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation that functions to silence the insulin gene, insulin expression may be reawakened. If successful, the research will not only lead to a method for avoiding islet cell transplantation but possibly the need for exogenous insulin therapy altogether which is very exciting. 

I was curious to have this research explained in more detail and to discover how close the investigative team were to success using these groundbreaking epigenetic strategies. 

Please join me in welcoming Dr Ishant Khurana to the podcast. 

References: 

Dr Ishant Khurana: https ://research.monash.edu 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/IshantKhuranaAU

Nature journal, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy titled: Inhibition of pancreatic EZH2 restores progenitor insulin in T1D donor. ⁠DOI: 10.1038/s41392-022-01034-7⁠