Top European prize for diabetes researcher
Thursday 23 September, 2010
A Medical Research Council (MRC) scientist has netted a prestigious prize for her research on a group of gut cells which could lead to the development of new drugs for diabetes and obesity.
Dr Fiona Gribble of the MRC Centre for Obesity Related Diseases in Cambridge was presented with the European Association for the Study of Diabetes’ Minkowski Prize in Stockholm this week for her research into intestinal L cells.
When we eat a meal, L cells are triggered to produce a hormone called GLP-1. GLP-1 signals a chain reaction which ultimately stabilises blood sugar levels and tells us to stop eating – so they are an important target for both diabetes and obesity. Little is known about L cells because they are sparsely scattered throughout the gut and until recently it was not possible to distinguish them from their neighbouring cells.
Fiona, a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow, has engineered the L cells to make their own fluorescent markers meaning it has been possible, for the first time, to identify and study them, live, in a sample of gut tissue. In particular she and her group look at how individual cells react to nutrients or drugs in order to understand more about how they work. Ultimately this could lead to the development of new drugs for diabetes and obesity.
Fiona explains:
“Some of the most promising diabetes treatments that have emerged recently have focused on mimicking GLP-1 to improve control of diabetes and help with weight loss – but the drawback of these drugs is that they need to be injected every day. L cells not only release GLP-1, but other hormones that reduce food intake – so if these cells could be made to secrete more of all of these hormones it could have beneficial effects on the amount of food we take in as well as the amount of insulin we produce.”
“We have already shown that glutamine, a naturally occurring amino acid, not only makes cells release more GLP-1 but also raises levels of GLP-1 in the bloodstream in people. The race is now on to develop new drugs which boost GLP-1 secretion.”
Fiona’s prize included EUR 20,000 and an invitation to give the Minkowski lecture at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes’ annual meeting. The prize is highly regarded in the world of diabetes research and is given each year to an investigator aged under 45 for research which contributes to the advancement of knowledge about diabetes.
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