These findings reinforce the potential of regeneration as a cure for diabetes and provide insights for discovering new approaches to treat people with diabetes by restoring or regenerating their ability to produce insulin.

JDRF- funded researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California showed that the stress hormone CRF (corticotropin-releasing factor) could increase the rate at which insulin-producing cells in the pancreas expand in animal models. 

Dr Wylie Vale, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Clayton Laboratories for Peptide Biology said that being able to stimulate beta cells to divide faster “may be part of a solution that may ultimately, hopefully, allow management of type 1 diabetes.”

“But because type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, making the cells divide won’t be enough. That is why researchers are working hard to solve the problem of destruction of beta cells.”

See JDRF International for more information.