We’re a stem cell lab in a diabetes center. Stem cell biology is the hammer; Type I diabetes is the nail. The connection is rather complicated.

Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease. (Actually, it may consist of several diseases that are different on a microscopic level but share clinical symptoms.) In most cases of type I diabetes, part of the immune system (usually T cells) destroys the insulin-making machinery (pancreatic beta cells).

Current treatments mostly just replace the missing insulin. This requires constant vigilance from patients about their insulin requirements, what they eat, how they exercise, and how they manage other health conditions. So even though type I diabetes is completely treatable on paper, it can really wear down the people it affects, and any lapse is dangerous. If we want to someday prevent or cure type I diabetes, instead of “only” treating it, we need to get a handle on the autoimmune aspect of the disease.

This is not easy to do, and tons of money and effort has been spent on immunology-based T1D prevention trials that did not pan out (example). Better preclinical research is badly needed. To this end, the Maehr lab is part of a big collaboration to create a new model system for type I diabetes. The scheme is to use mice as hosts for diabetes-relevant human organ systems: a human pancreas and a human adaptive immune system.

Human organ systems are difficult to procure ethically – duh – so the idea is to use stem-cell-derived organs instead. Our lab’s role is to make stem-cell-derived thymic epithelium. Thymic epithelium trains part of your immune system (the T cells) what to attack and what to let live, so it will be a crucial component of the autoimmune disease mechanics that we want to make accessible for study.

In order to make progress on stem-cell-derived thymic epithelium, the Maehr lab has invested heavily in recent sequencing-based technologies. I joined the lab as a bioinformatician back in September 2016, and my role is to help my colleagues derive insight from the data they produce.

It’s an amazing era to be working in molecular biology, and a big privilege to work in this lab in particular. Check out our website for more info.

Addendum 2020 August 15: I worked in the Maehr lab for almost 4 years. I am now excited to be entering the Ph.D. program in the Johns Hopkins BME Department.