Väinö Lithovius
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lithoviusv.bsky.social
Väinö Lithovius
@lithoviusv.bsky.social
Post-Doctoral Scientist (MD-PhD) at Helmholtz Zentrum München, Heiko Lickert group, previously Univ. Helsinki, Otonkoski Group
Making pancreatic islets from stem cells
7) Thanks to all the coauthors who helped me with this final piece of my PhD. Currently looking for a suitable publication channel!🤓
October 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM
6) Taken together, relamorelin shows promise as a novel treatment option for CHI, especially when combined with octreotide. Relamorelin has been found to be well tolerated in adult diabetes patients, suggesting it could be repurposed for CHI, which is still difficult to manage for modern medicine
October 23, 2025 at 1:06 PM
5) We then investigated a long-acting analogue of ghrelin, relamorelin in combination with octreotide, the current first line treatment for these CHI patients. We demonstrate that the combination of these drugs act synergistically to increase blood glucose more than the sum of the individual drugs
October 23, 2025 at 1:03 PM
4) In these mice, we tested ghrelin, which reversed the hypoglycaemia and reduced the human SC-islet specific insulin secretion
October 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM
3) we then implanted immunocompromised mice with KCNJ11 wildtype and knockout SC-islets, demonstrating rapid development of hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia in the mice implanted with the knockout SC-islets
October 23, 2025 at 12:58 PM
2) We then tested insulin secretion affecting compounds in vitro for their ability to suppress the insulin hypersecretion from the KCNJ11 knockout SC-islets. We identified the expected reduction from the clinically used octreotide and exendin 9-39 with reduction with 3 novel compounds
October 23, 2025 at 12:55 PM
1) We created KCNJ11 knockout stem cells, differentiated them to stem cell derived islets (SC-islets) and demonstrated over 3-fold increased insulin secretion in sub-stimulatory glucose, recapitulating the cardinal defect of congenital hyperinsulinism in vitro
October 23, 2025 at 12:51 PM