Le Translational Research Laboratory The research unit on Diabetes is a joint research unit of the University of Lille, Inserm, Lille University Hospital and the Pasteur Institute of Lille. Initially labeled by INSERM as ERIT-M in 2000, the team became UNIT-M in 2005, then U859 in 2009 and UMR – 1190 in 2015.

In 2009, she joined the team of Philippe Froguel and Bart Staels to form the Research Federation of the European Genomics Institute for Diabetes (EGID), which was awarded in 2011 as a Laboratory of Excellence (Labex) by the Investments for the Future Program [PIA].

The research team is located on the Lille University Hospital campus, within the Research Hub of the Faculty of Medicine, and includes a Biotherapy Platform for the production of human islets, an animal facility (rodents and minipigs), and the DiabInnov platform (an industry-university platform). All our clinical studies are conducted at Huriez Hospital, adjacent to our laboratory.

Presentation

The unit focuses on translational research on diabetes, particularly human islet transplantation and metabolic surgery. The team develops innovative therapies for severe forms of diabetes and their clinical application. Our scientific objectives are centered on the production of human islets and the treatment of type 1 diabetes through islet transplantation, and the treatment of type 2 diabetes through metabolic surgery.

A key feature of the research strategy is the integration, under the leadership of a single team, of clinical researchers, endocrine surgeons, and diabetologists, along with a veterinarian and biologists, who combine their expertise to move research from the laboratory to the patient's bedside. This unique structure has proven particularly well-suited to translational diabetes research and has enabled the successful and repeated application of strategies previously developed in the laboratory and validated in animal models to clinical settings. Furthermore, clinical studies often employ invasive techniques, which offer numerous opportunities to access valuable human biological samples, such as pancreatic islets or other metabolic tissues, while strictly adhering to regulatory requirements. Therefore, we have developed experimental and mechanistic studies based on human islets and animal models.

DiabInnov Platform

DiabInnov is a research platform that helps companies and academic laboratories to research and develop innovative therapies for the treatment metabolic diseases and their comorbidities, in order to significantly advance the therapeutic management of patients.
It is composed of a multidisciplinary team of translational researchThis team is world-renowned for its clinical and preclinical research on human islets of Langerhans as well as for its animal models.

Its mission is to put basic, preclinical and clinical research on metabolism at the service of health research companies and universities, in order to highlight new pharmacological targets, test new compounds and accelerate the safety and efficacy testing of innovative medical devices.

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News

• The team demonstrated that dapagliflozin treatment promotes glucagon secretion and hepatic gluconeogenesis in mice, thereby modulating the fasting-induced decrease in plasma glucose. These results highlight a previously unknown role for the SGLT2 receptor (a sodium-glucose cotransporter) and identify dapagliflozin as a secretagogue of pancreatic alpha cells. (Bonner et al., Nature Medicine 2015).
• Sodium has been identified as a key factor in intestinal glucose absorption, and we have shown that Roux-en-Y gastric bypass reduces the sodium normally delivered to the intestine by bile, thereby hindering intestinal glucose absorption via sodium-glucose cotransport. (Baud et al., Cell Metabolism 2016).
• The team demonstrated that non-endocrine cells (ductal cells and exocrine tissue) have a beneficial effect on the long-term function of islet transplantation, through the differentiation of ductal cells into endocrine cells. (Benolmar K at al. AMJT, 2018).
• For the first time, the team has demonstrated that human islet transplantation corrects unstable type 1 diabetes over a period of 10 years. (Vantyghem MC et al. Diabetes Care, 2019).
• Using five complementary models (db/db mice, healthy C57BL/6J mice, human islet cultures, diet-induced obese mice, and SSTR2 KO mice), the team demonstrated that the combination of liraglutide, a GLP-1 agonist, and dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor, improved blood glucose levels and reduced dapagliflozin-induced glucagon secretion via somatostatin release. (Saponaro et al., Cell Reports, 2019).
• Unbiased analysis of RNA sequencing from 207 pancreas donors and confocal immunofluorescence imaging analysis of 665 islets from 12 pancreas donors revealed an unprecedented level of heterogeneity in the SLC5A2 gene and SGLT2 protein expression in human alpha cells (Saponaro et al., Diabetes, 2020).
• Using the Western blot technique, the team demonstrated that the expression and regulation of proglucagon-derived peptides can be verified in primary islets in response to various metabolic stimuli. (Acosta-Montalvo et al., Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2020).