The islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine (i.e., hormone-producing) cells. Discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans, the islets of Langerhans constitute approximately 1% to 2% of the mass of the pancreas. There are about one million islets distributed throughout the pancreas of a healthy adult human. Each is separated from the surrounding pancreatic tissue by a thin fibrous connective tissue capsule. The islets of Langerhans contain beta cells, which secrete insulin, and play a significant role in diabetes.

Islets are widely used for transplantation to restore beta cell function from diabetes, offering an alternative to a complete pancreas transplantation or an artificial pancreas. Because the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans are selectively destroyed by an autoimmune process in type 1 diabetes, islet transplantation is a means of restoring physiological beta cell function in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Human Islets for Research (HIR)® are primary human islets processed from organ donor pancreases that have been approved for research but not for clinical transplantation of either the  pancreas or the isolated islets. HIR® are obtained in a proprietary process of pancreas digestion and islet purification that results in uniformly high quality HIR® for delivery to diabetes  investigators. Quality Control (QC) testing is routinely performed prior to release to assure uniform quality and function of these islets available for research.

Messenger RNAs – a promising class of new therapeutic biologics

As messenger RNAs (mRNAs) are easier to deliver into cells than plasmids or viral vectors, they are useful for non-dividing cells. Inversely to the vectors, they ensure genome integrity that is recommended for cell therapeutics. mRNA are also well adapted to transient expression as required for cellular reprogramming, gene editing, and vaccines.

You might like to take a look at this poster, presented by Trilink (renowned modified nucleic acid experts) at the Keystone symposia last March (Pattern Recognition Signaling: From Innate Immunity to Inflammatory Disease). They share results on how to optimize messenger RNA for therapeutic activity.

“Innate Immune focused approaches to maximize messenger RNA therapeutic activity”
Download your copy of the poster here.

Sekisui XenoTech has just been issued U.S. Patent No. 9,642,355 for the “cryopreservation of cells and subcellular fractions,” specifically related to Sekisui XenoTech’s CryostaX® test systems. This hepatocyte cryopreservation method was invented by Maciej Czerwinski, Ph.D., Director of Consulting for Sekisui XenoTech.

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway is activated by a number of extra and intracellular stimuli including cytokines, growth factors, and hormones as well as stressors such as oxidative and ER stress. This pathways plays a key role in the regulation of many cellular processes including proliferation, differentiation, the stress response, motility, growth, differentiation, survival, and death. Abnormal MAPK signaling may contribute to increased or uncontrolled cell proliferation and/or resistance to apoptosis. To study this complex pathway, several tools are available, from the pathway specific arrays for an initial screen, to phospho-specific ELISA tests for individual target validation. This post aims at helping you to easily identify tools to explore this pathway in your samples (from arrays to phospho-ELISAs). However, I could not start without showing you once more one of these eye-catching illustrations of cell signalling pathways. I’ll let you explore it to dig out the MAPK protein cascade among all of them (a kind of Where’s Wally for the researcher !).

MAP Kinase cell signaling pathway – but which ELISA test or array should you choose to study it?