Towards A Possible Therapy for Diabetes Complications

Description of projects available to graduate students:
Diabetes mellitus is a life-threatening disease that places children (type 1) and adults (type 2) at risk of complications of blindness, kidney damage and heart disease. C-peptide is the segment connecting insulin A and B chains. It is generated in pancreatic beta-cells as the natural product of pro-insulin cleavage. For a long time, it was considered biologically important only for favoring pro-insulin folding within the secretory granules of the beta-cells. However, recently it has been offered increasing evidence that human C-peptide exerts intracellular effects in a variety of cells and could be of real benefit for diabetic patients who suffer from micro-vascular complications.

Techniques graduate student will learn:
To infuse purified C-peptide in diabetic mice to prevent aterosclerotic complications.