Emerging Concepts and Targets in Islet Biology (D3)

The rationale for proposing a Keystone Islet Biology Program in 2014 is to educate the scientific community, both from academia and industry, on a crucial area of islet biology that has not been a focus of recent scientific meetings. We propose that a theme centered on new signaling pathways in adult islet cells that impact islet cell physiology would be timely with respect to new therapeutic approaches to combat diabetes. The goal would be to invite both senior scientists and emerging young Investigators who have recently published in high impact Journals to speak. The novelty of this meeting will be the focus on basic signaling pathways that identify emerging targets for enhancing the function, promoting survival and/or increasing proliferation of islet cells. We will include potential drug targets that reside in different organ systems that can impact islet cells by inter-organ communication, or are localized to the islet milieu with effects on islet vascularization and innervation, or are products of novel genes that have been recently identified in genetic studies. Finally, we believe that efforts aimed at assessing the efficacy of drug targeting will require means to quantitatively assess islet responses in vivo, and therefore we propose a session focused on non-invasive assessment (biomarkers or imaging) of beta cell mass and/or function. We also suggest Workshops to cover two areas of major interest to the scientific community (academia and industry): a) a session devoted to drug targets currently in trials or of major interest to industry; and b) a session to discuss the use of high quality human islets and pancreas samples for research work.