Thursday, 15 February 2018 11:45

Ulm: Pancreas-on-a-chip for diabetes drug development Featured

Scientists at the University Hospital of Ulm are developing a pancreas chip made of stem cells that enables the pharmaceutical industry to test diabetes drugs in high throughput. 
 
 
For this purpose, a research consortium called PancChip was founded. There, scientists of the University Hospital Ulm led by Prof.  Alexander Kleger cooperate with researchers of the Institute of Microsystems Technology (IMTEK) at University of Freiburg as well as the Institute for Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Zentrum Munich.
 
The aim is to obtain functional beta cells of the pancreas from reprogrammed stem cells and transfer them a microfluidic chip.
The pancreas chip will later also be used to establish a disease model with patient cells with which the development and treatment of diabetes, pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer can be investigated.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for three years.