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FRED LEVINE, M.D., PH.D.
Professor and Director, Sanford Children's Health Research Center
Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology
858.795.5179 (phone)
flevine@burnham.org
RESEARCH FOCUS, BIOGRAPHY, PUBLICATIONS
Research Focus
Transplantation of cells exhibiting glucose-responsive insulin secretion has the potential to cure diabetes. However, this approach is limited by an inadequate supply of primary pancreatic beta-cells. Efforts to expand human beta-cells using growth factors have been limited by cellular senescence and the loss of differentiated function, particularly pancreatic hormone expression. To generate an unlimited supply of human beta-cells, Dr. Levine’s research group is creating pancreatic beta-cell lines by manipulating the genetic complement of the cell using gene transfer vectors. Genes controlling cellular growth and differentiation are used to cause cells to enter the cell cycle so that they can be grown in large quantities. Genes controlling beta-cell differentiation are used to ensure that the cells maintain the ability to secrete insulin in response to glucose. The ability to induce beta-cell development in vitro and in vivo provides new information on the pathways that are involved in beta-cell differentiation. Furthermore, the ability to grow unlimited quantities of functional human beta-cells is a major step on the road to developing a definitive cell transplantation therapy for diabetes.
Biography
Dr. Levine is a Professor and Director of the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. Prior to that, he was a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, where he continues to see children with inherited metabolic diseases. Dr. Levine received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard and his M.D. and Ph.D. degree in genetics from the University of Washington. His clinical training as a pediatric geneticist was at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Levine has been working in the field of cell transplantation therapies for diabetes and b-cell biology for more than fifteen years. His laboratory was the first to develop immortalized cell lines from the human endocrine pancreas as models of beta-cell growth and differentiation. He has made insights into cellular senescence in the endocrine pancreas, finding that b-cells undergo rapid senescence when stimulated to proliferate. Most recently, he and his co-workers demonstrated the existence of endocrine stem cells in the adult human pancreas. The laboratory continues to pursue the development of cell therapies for diabetes using a variety of approaches, including high throughput screening.
List of Publications via PubMed
(NIH National Library of Medicine)
