Part 1 of a 3 part series.
Many of you may have read the very interesting news about β-cell regeneration that was reported by the JDRF recently. For those of you who haven’t, and for those of you who wanted to know more about what exactly the reported α-to-β cell conversion was, here are some more details on the study, based on my reading of the paper published in Nature. A disclaimer: I am not a trained biologist (yet; this disease appears to be turning me into one), so if I get anything wrong, please let me know.
Before we dive into what the researchers at the University of Geneva found, it is important to understand a few of the basics about the pancreas, and its cellular landscape.
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