Dr.Andrew Stewart, MD, the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine
and Director of Mount Sinai’s Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute led a
team of scientists who discovered a novel mechanism that regulates the
replication of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Their findings
provided novel working models describing the control of cell cycle progression
in the human beta cell. These discoveries offer new
insights into possible therapeutic approaches to stimulate the regeneration of
pancreatic beta cells in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Over the
past year, substantial progress has been made using high-throughput drug
screens to identify novel drugs that induce human beta cells to proliferate. In addition, researchers,
led by Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, and
Neuroscience, recently discovered that impairment in insulin action in the
brain may be one of the earliest defects that occurs in obese patients who
eventually develop diabetes, according to findings that published in Cell Metabolism. Mount Sinai also establish and
expanded its type 1 diabetes basic immunology research program, led by YaronTomer, MD, FACP, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone
Disease. Dr. Tomer’s group discovered that epigenetic changes, which are
changes in the way genes work when they are not mutated, play a key role in the
development of type 1 diabetes, in a study published in the Journal of
Autoimmunity. The group studying type 1 diabetes immunology is expanding. Among
the leading new recruits is Dirk Homann, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine,
an expert on type 1 diabetes immunology, who joined the Division from the
University of Colorado. The Institute is also creating a program to advance the
study of bariatric surgery and diabetes with William B. Inabnet III, MD, Chair,
Department of Surgery, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, a world-renowned leader in the
field of minimally invasive endocrine and laparoscopic surgery.
