Chemicals turn human embryonic stem cells towards beta cells

1. Yu-Ping Yang and Chris Wright are in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the Vanderbilt University Program in Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. e-mail: chris.wright@vanderbilt.edu

Abstract

Small-molecule library screening identifies simple imitators of the cellular signaling events that normally guide formation of the pancreas and its insulin-secreting beta cells, further enabling detailed analysis in vitro, or eventual diabetes therapies via large-scale differentiation
of human stem cells.