Supporting Pediatric Research at UF

Kelly Guillou and her daughter, Clementine, are on a mission to help other pediatric Type 1 diabetes patients. Together, they are fundraising for the Diabetes Research in Pediatrics fund, with a goal to “move the T1D research needle.” “We must have research that will help fully explain the mechanics of T1D,” Kelly said. “With a full understanding come solutions. Solutions will improve diabetes technology and will hopefully lead to a cure. This is why we are raising money for the UF Diabetes Institute.” Visit giving.UFHealth.org/T1DResearch to read more about Clementine and her family’s journey managing her Type 1 diabetes.

Centennial Celebration of

Insulin's Discovery

2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the successful treatment of canine diabetes with a pancreas extract now known as insulin.  This discovery by Sir Frederick Banting, Charles Best and John Macleod from the University of Toronto represented not only a remarkable scientific achievement, but more importantly, provided a life-saving intervention for individuals diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Over the past century, through a series of highly collaborative international research efforts, astounding progress has been made toward understanding how Type 1 diabetes develops. Scientists have identified disease predictive biomarkers, calculated Type 1 diabetes risk scores and conducted clinical trials testing dozens of therapies in hopes of preventing or reversing the disease. Read the full article here.

What is ECHO® all about?

The Project Extension for Community Health Outcomes, or ECHO®, diabetes program empowers primary care providers to deliver best-practice diabetes care to underserved patients. The ECHO® model is particularly promising for reaching patients at risk of experiencing health disparities. People from underserved communities are much more likely to visit a primary care physician than a specialist like an endocrinologist, and Project ECHO® allows them to maintain continuity of care. To learn more about this innovative program, please click here to read REFLECTIONS, the Project ECHO® diabetes newsletter.

Technology in Research

The research programs at the UF Diabetes Institute recently added a new piece of lab equipment to the mix: the MACSima Imaging System. “Imaging a tissue has long been limited to a handful of markers at any one time. The MACSima now allows researchers to scan more than 85 markers at once. That means our research programs can now take a rare tissue from a Type 1 diabetes organ donor and resolve what is happening at a tissue and cellular level with the depth that wasn’t possible using prior technologies,”, said Todd Brusko, Ph.D., scientific director at the UF Diabetes Institute.

Diabetes Core Podcast

Ashby Walker, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ department of health services research, management and policy and director of Health Equity Initiatives at the UF Diabetes Institute, was interviewed at the Diabetes Core Update podcast, a monthly podcast devoted to the discussion of the latest clinically relevant articles from American Diabetes Association’s four scholarly journals: Diabetes,  Diabetes Care, Clinical Diabetes and Diabetes Spectrum. Diabetes Core Update discusses how the latest research and information published in ADA journals are relevant to clinical practice and can be applied in a treatment setting. Click here to listen to the podcast.

Fifth Among Top Public Universities

After five consecutive years of ascension, the University of Florida’s performance has positioned UF among the nation’s top five ranked public universities, according to the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, marking an extraordinary milestone in the university’s history. Read the full article here.

HIRN Trainee Scholarship Recipient

Charles Lazimi is a first-year doctoral student in the UF Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering’s J. Crayton Pruitt Family department of biomedical engineering, working in the lab of Ed Phelps, Ph.D. Charles received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in biomedical engineering at UF. While completing his master’s, he was hired as a research scientist at L&L Biotechnology in Gainesville, where he developed skills in molecular cloning. His master’s capstone project consisted of sub-cloning a beta cell-specific promoter into a GABA biosensor construct to detect endogenous GABA release in human islets. The aim of his current research is to incorporate cloned biosensors into micro-physiological systems to better characterize islet-immune interactions and islet neurotransmitter auto/paracrine signaling.

The Sugar Science Podcast #93

Graciela Lorca, Ph.D., joined the Sugar Science Podcast to discuss microbiome probiotics & T1D. The episode is in "Ask the Expert style", a 30 minute digital cafe experience where scientists and grad students can meet up and exchange with thought leaders in the field of type one diabetes. The(sugar)science is an interactive digital platform founded to curate the scientific conversation among type 1 diabetes (T1D) researchers. Our goal is to expedite a cure for T1D by promoting collaboration across diverse research disciplines. Click here to listen the podcast.

NIH F31 PreDoctoral Fellowship Award

Congratulations to Mollie Huber on her NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship Award, “Investigating T1D pathogenesis using the live pancreas tissue slice platform.” Mollie is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the biomedical sciences program in the labs of Mark Atkinson, Ph.D., Clayton Mathews, Ph.D., and Ed Phelps, Ph.D.

UFDI Diabetes Museum

The UF Diabetes Institute recently acquired diabetes memorabilia to create the UFDI Diabetes Museum with the intent to collect, preserve, interpret and display objects of scientific significance. To help with the project, Sam Huber, a fourth-year international studies student who plans to pursue a graduate degree in museum studies, is working to catalog more than 100 diabetes-related items. Once the cataloging phase is concluded, the UF Diabetes Institute will release a digital exhibit to showcase the entire collection.