Campus News

Familial Pancreatitis Linked to Diabetes and Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

The cause of the pancreatic inflammation plaguing a rural California family has been a medical mystery since it was first described 51 years ago. Now genetic sleuth-work by researchers from UCSF and University of Chicago has solved the mystery: pointing to a novel gene mutation as the cause of the family’s inherited pancreatitis.

Functional Insulin-Producing Cells Grown In Lab

UC San Francisco researchers have for the first time transformed human stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells, a major breakthrough in the effort to develop a cure for type 1 (T1) diabetes. 

Replacing these cells, which are lost in patients with T1 diabetes, has long been a dream of regenerative medicine, but until now scientists had not been able to figure out how to produce cells in a lab dish that work as they do in healthy adults.