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Open Competition for the Targeted Resource Generation Projects (TRGP) Program
Jun 13, 2012 - Nashville, TN
Periodically, the BCBC solicits projects through an open competition process to provide support for the development of new reagents and resources that are needed to achieve the overall goals of the consortium.
The current announcement is for a Targeted Resource Generation Project (TRGP) competition to generate scalable, in-vitro models of pure pancreatic beta cells of human origin. These cells should have phenotypic and functional characteristics highly similar to human beta-cells derived from healthy human islets, and meet the following criteria:
- Mono-hormonal expression of insulin
- Response to relevant secretagogues in the physiological range in-vitro
- Scalability to medium or high throughput assays
Beta cells derived from human Pluripotent Stem Cells (PSCs), or cell lines derived from either human pancreas or PSCs would be suitable. Ideally, beta cells generated from any source should have the capability to become quiescent to facilitate development of highly reproducible screening platforms for small molecules or other biologic materials that can induce beta cell proliferation. Cell lines which maintain a stable karyotype would be highly desirable. Successive subcloning of the newly generated line(s) should be performed in order to confirm that a homogenous cell line has been generated. Assessment of regulated insulin secretion in any newly developed beta cell preparation or beta cell line should be performed using sophisticated physiological assays, such as in a cell perifusion system coupled with challenges with a variety of known beta-cell secretagogues. Function should be assessed at different passage levels to ensure that the phenotype is stable and the cells don’t senesce. While creating a scalable source of human insulin beta cell should be the priority of any proposal that comes in response to this announcement, generating a similar source of human alpha cells could be proposed as a parallel effort.
Read the Program Description for additional details and contact information.
