Immune cells are an integral part of nearly every organ in the body, including the pancreas—and, notably, the endocrine islets of Langerhans themselves. Rather than viewing islets as purely endocrine units, our lab investigates how resident immune cells shape islet biology from within, contributing to normal function as well as vulnerability to disease.
We take an ad hoc, islet-level approach to this question, measuring the immune composition of individual islets and directly correlating it with islet function and cellular metabolism. Using knockout mouse models lacking specific components of the immune system, alongside engineered islets with defined, tailor-made immune cell compositions, we assess how altering the immune microenvironment impacts islet function, using both bulk and single-cell transcriptomics.
Our long-term goal is to define the immune conditions that best support healthy, functional islets—with an eye toward engineering optimized islets for transplantation, offering a path toward more durable and immune-compatible therapies for diabetes.
