17 May is the Norwegian National Day, an official national holiday. Among Norwegians, the day is referred to simply as syttende mai – literally meaning “seventeenth May” or Nasjonaldagen – “The National Day”. On this day, people typically wear traditional outfits, called bunad and also red, white and blue ribbons.
Diabetesforbundets forskningskonferanse is the annual research conference of the Norwegian Diabetes Association, which this year was held at Clarion Hotel & Congress Oslo Airport on 28-29th of April.
Our research group was represented by:
The other 2 presentations from the Diabetes Stem Cell which I would like to mention were given by Hanne Scholz (mesechymal stem cells in the treatment of type 1 diabetes) and Jørn V. Sagen (brown fat cells in obesity and type 2 diabetes).
Although the meeting was mainly in Norwegian, the atmosphere was lively, with story readings and research data presentations, combined with good food and exercise-induced endorphines.
Diabetesforbundet is very active on social media: instagram, twitter, facebook, and I especially enjoyed the conference app.
Today, Helge will talk about Bergen Stem Cell Consortium, as a tool for basic and clinical research, at the joined K1/K2 Seminar.
Pizza for attendees from 14:05-14.15
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) is a type of autosomal dominant monogenic diabetes classically characterized by non-ketotic, non-insulin-dependent diabetes occurring before the age of 25 years. Patients with MODY5 commonly exhibit pancreatic hypoplasia due to an autosomal dominant mutation in the HNF1B gene.
Previously, our collaborators from Joslin Diabetes Center, the research group of Rohit Kulkarni, turned skin cells (fibroblasts), donated by Norwegian patients, into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are cells that can be coaxed to develop any tissue in the body. Now, using a customised protocol, they differentiated these iPSC into pancreatic progenitors and compared family controls with 2 mutation carriers (of which one of them has developed diabetes, whereas the other has not). Time-course analyses revealed complex compensatory mechanisms acting at the transcriptional level. These data suggest that, even though the diabetes onset occurs relatively late in life, there are compensated perturbations early during pancreatic development. Future studies are required on later differentiation stages up to mature insulin-producing β-like cells, which should reveal the impact of transcriptional perturbations on β-cell formation and function.
The paper can be read here.
Early Developmental Perturbations in a Human Stem Cell Model of MODY5/HNF1B Pancreatic Hypoplasia Teo AK, Lau HH, Valdez IA, Dirice E, Tjora E, Raeder H, Kulkarni RN.
Stem Cell Reports. 2016 Feb 8. pii: S2213-6711(16)00024-2.
After a break of almost 2 weeks, we are all back into the lab and realized that we need to take a group-picture! So, here it is, our research group:
The Norwegian Research Council announced on 7th of December the new list of awardees. Two members of our group got new funding from FRIPRO for 2 independent Young Research Talent projects:
Congratulations to Simona Chera and Harald Barsnes!
22 % of applications for Researcher projects, Young Research Talents and FRIPRO mobility grants received an overall mark of 6 or 7. Among these, approximately 50 % were funded within FRIMEDBIO’s budget. For more information on the FRIPRO application review process, see the FRIPRO web pages.
Harald Barsnes, affiliated to our group and researcher at the Department of Biomedicine and Department of Informatics, receives 9,4 million NOK from Bergen Research Foundation.
The aim of Harald’s project is to develop bioinformatic solutions for research challenges. For example, medical research generates large amounts of data. To interpret such data and simultaneously obtain maximum benefit from them can be a slow and difficult process. His project involves a multidisciplinary collaboration across four departments at the University of Bergen and several international partners.
Photo: Eivind Senneset Copyright: UiB
During his time in Bergen, Constantin contributed to the generation of MODY-1 patient derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and their further differentiation into the pancreatic progenitor cells. In collaboration with Professor Mustafa Kamal (Department of Clinical Dentistry) and Dr. Marco Metzger (Fraunhofer IGB in Wuerzburg) research groups, Constantin began to work on a differentiation protocol using an acellularised porcine intestine matrix (SISmuc/SISser). Currently our group is analyzing these experiments to compare and improve the differentiation protocol.
Thus, after 3 months of work and fun in Bergen, Constantin returned to Germany where he will work on his master thesis at the University of Wuerzburg.
The Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa is a yearly meeting in La Jolla, San Diego, bringing scientists and companies together to interactive workshops, in-depth panel discussions, company presentations and one-to-one partnering, in order to bring the Stem Cell field to the Clinic. The Raeder lab aims to team up with leading companies in the stem cell field in order to bring novel therapies to our diabetes patients as soon as possible.
The Islet Cell Plasticity in Diabetes Therapy conference took place on 8-9 october 2015 and it was organized as a joint conference between Banting and Best Diabetes Centre, Joslin Diabetes Center and University of Copenhagen, with the purpose of bringing together researchers from the three organizations and other international researchers to address the latest developments in the field of islet cell plasticity in diabetes therapy.
Our group was represented by:
Ræder lab 