The University of British Columbia

Purpose

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) occurs following autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. The promise of a cell-based therapy for T1D was demonstrated over 25 years ago in Edmonton with pancreatic islet transplantation; however, there is still insufficient transplantable material to help everyone living with T1D. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can now be efficiently differentiated to insulin-expressing cells and these stem cell-derived islets (SC islets) are now showing promising results in clinical trials. However, the cell lines used for these trials are not readily available outside of the industrial setting and all of the commonly used ESCs are subject to restrictive user agreements that makes clinical translation difficult and expensive. As such, there is a need for a publicly available and easily commercializable pluripotent stem cell line that could be rapidly used by any lab or company in Canada to generate a cell replacement therapy for T1D. By the end of the project, the team will understand whether a series of 6 iPSC lines generated by the NRC can efficiently form pancreatic islets and if so, which of these is most efficient at making the cells with best islet function.