Scientists from the Danish Stem Cell Centre are in the early stages of creating a working mini pancreas from stem cells.

Diabetes progressively becomes one of the most dangerous threats in our society, in terms number of cases reported and the lack of efficient treatments. But today Connectikpeople has been impressed by the researchers of the Danish Stem Cell
Centre. They claim they can use mouse pancreatic cells to grow expanded, branched structures in a 3D culture. This work could have implications in building a human pancreas which could function as an insulin-producing mini organ.

Connectikpeople has also observed that, detailed in a study published in the journal Development, the research team started by studying the development potential of pancreatic cells.  They demonstrated that cells in a cluster form a sort of community that allows them to expand more efficiently than individual cells. Downstream, this information could help to develop a method of creating beta cells, which produce the insulin-releasing characteristic of a healthy pancreas.

"We think this is an important step towards the production of cells for diabetes therapy, both to produce mini-organs for drug testing and insulin-producing cells as spare parts," "we show that the pancreas cells care not only about how you feed them but need to be grown in the right physical environment." said Grapin-Botton.