A new Montreal laboratory wants to pave the way for a cure for type 1 diabetes

The rapid acceleration in scientific knowledge about stem cells and regenerative medicine suggests that insulin dependence may one day be a thing of the past for patients with type 1 diabetes.

Yasaman Aghazadeh is one of the researchers aiming to take the lead in the quest for a cure for this autoimmune disease. Having just arrived at the Montreal clinical research institute (IRCM), she will be heading up the new Regenerative Medicine Research Unit for Diabetes.

"Diabetes is an epidemic, particularly in Canada. One Canadian in four is diabetic or pre-diabetic, which is not particularly positive," she said in an interview during a visit by The Canadian Press to the premises of her new laboratory.

With a doctorate in experimental medicine from McGill University, she has been working for eight years on the regeneration of pancreatic tissue from stem cells. This research was undertaken at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute in Toronto.

Although she aspired to run her own lab, Aghazadeh said that she targeted the IRCM because of the buzz around diabetes research in Montreal.

"The IRCM is a leader in diabetes and metabolism research. There are fantastic researchers and clinicians here who work very well together," she said.

Since much of her work focuses on type 2 diabetes, she believes she can carve out her own niche by focusing on type 1.

"When everything is working normally, it is the beta cells inside the pancreas that produce the insulin that enables the body to regulate blood sugar levels. In patients with type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the beta cells, preventing them from playing their role," she said.

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At present, the effects of this disease can be controlled by regular injections of insulin. However, this treatment proves burdensome in the long term for people who have to adhere to it rigorously for the rest of their lives.

Another type of treatment has recently been developed in Edmonton. It involves transplanting islets of Langerhans, a group of cells that includes beta cells.

Although promising, this treatment is limited by the small number of donors available. What's more, since type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, the patient must undergo immunosuppressive treatment before the transplant. A protocol that carries a high risk of side effects and is proving difficult for patients.

As if that wasn't enough, there's another major problem: the survival of cells produced in the laboratory. As they have no vascular network, they cannot become part of the human organism.

It is precisely these challenges that Aghazadeh and her team, initially consisting of a research assistant and a doctoral student, hope to meet.

Over the next few years, the researcher hopes to recreate complex pancreatic tissue, complete with vascular networks, and above all, to demystify the entire cellular functioning of the pancreas.

"We want the composition of these tissues to be as identical as possible to that of human tissues," she said from her premises, which are still waiting to be fitted out.

To achieve this, the researcher wants to start at the earliest stages of life and carefully observe the tissue development process.

"We don't just want to recreate a pancreas; we want to understand each of its components," said the woman her colleagues call "Yassie".

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After completing her bachelor's degree at the University of Tehran in Iran, Aghazadeh joined Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos's laboratory in McGill University's experimental medicine programme.

There she obtained her master's and doctoral degrees, working on hormone production and cell signalling pathways. She was particularly interested in the hormones produced by the adrenal glands and testicles.

Through this research, her team succeeded in developing a treatment to stimulate hormone production. This patented discovery is now the subject of a drug under development in the United States.

At the same time, because her lab desperately needed human tissue to conduct its experiments, Aghazadeh set up a cohort of students tasked with manufacturing human tissue from stem cells.

"I discovered that I was much more interested in stem cells than in developing drugs," she said. "So I looked for laboratories that were working on this full-time."

So Yassie left for Toronto, where she joined the McEwan Institute. There she began her quest to produce pancreatic tissue from stem cells.

If she succeeds, Aghazadeh could eventually see her work transformed into a clinical study and possibly change the lives of millions of people.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 11, 2023.