Excited to see our review out in @cp-trendsendomet.bsky.social! Great team effort and lots of fun to dive into how #islets form and how we can use this knowledge for #diabetes therapy. @mireiamoli.bsky.social @ckarampelias.bsky.social @heikolickert.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

From architecture to function: mechanisms shaping pancreatic islet morphogenesis

Islets of Langerhans are highly structured mini-organs containing hormone-producing cells of the pancreas that regulate glucose metabolism. Studies of…

sciencedirect.com

It is my great pleasure to co-chair together with Leen‘t Hart the iPSC and islet organoids session tomorrow at the 10th Meeting of the Study Group on Genetics of Diabetes #SGGD2026 introducing great speakers: Charlotte Ling, Amna Khamis, and Heiko Lickert, @heikolickert.bsky.social

Obviously special shoutout to our great Proteomics and Genomics core facilities at @helmholtzmunich.bsky.social and of course the boss @heikolickert.bsky.social for his continuous support! Grateful to the @humboldt-foundation.de for supporting this work with a postdoctoral fellowship.

New resource online! 🐖 Benchmarking porcine #PancreaticDuctalOrganoids for #DrugScreening applications by @ckarampelias.bsky.social, @heikolickert.bsky.social & colleagues @helmholtzmunich.bsky.social 🗞️ doi.org/10.1038/s443...

🔬 Breakthrough in Diabetes Research: An international team led by @heikolickert.bsky.social has published the first single-cell atlas comparing pancreas development across humans, pigs, and mice — marking a milestone in translational medicine. @helmholtzmunich.bsky.social t1p.de/dqwer

An Evolutionary Comparison of Pancreas Development: A Milestone in Translational Research and Diabetes Therapies

Neuherberg Pancreas development in pigs resembles humans much more closely than does the established mouse model. An international team headed by Helmholtz Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Re...

t1p.de

Comparing Pancreas Development Across Species to Advance Diabetes Research New insights from international researchers led by #HelmholtzMunich & #DZD could reshape the future of #diabetes modeling & #RegenerativeMedicine. 👉 t1p.de/zg0ra @diabresearch-dzd.bsky.social @heikolickert.bsky.social

Check out the latest manuscript from the @heikolickert.bsky.social lab on generating a defined stem-cell derived islet product for transplantation. A thorough characterization of the system particularly by our star PhD students Nike and Nicole! #PancSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Endocrine-enriched stem cell-derived islets improve long-term safety in vivo

Fully differentiated stem cell-derived islets (SC-islets) are proven to normalise blood glucose in type 1 diabetic patients. However, the presence of off-target cell types and the immature SC-islet fu...

biorxiv.org

Happy to share a new tool from the @heikolickert.bsky.social lab! We generated human iPSC fluorescent reporter lines to monitor Wnt/PCP signaling activity by Flattop in stem cell derived β-cells. doi.org/10.1016/j.sc... Thanks to all the co-authors that helped in the present and the past!

New from the @heikolickert.bsky.social clan and great work from Carina together with all collaborators and the Theis lab to study pancreas development across species, bringing new insights into conserved pathways using multimodal computational analysis www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PancSky

A multimodal cross-species comparison of pancreas development - Nature Communications

This study establishes the pig as a complementary model for studying human pancreas development. It shows pigs mimic human developmental tempo, gene regulation, and endocrine cell emergence, offering ...

nature.com

Congratulations Nike, Nicole, Kathy and the whole team to get this important study into the pipeline. If you womder if stem cell-derived islet compositions matters for safety and efficacy for the graft, our tissue engineering approach gives an answer. Check it out….

Christos Karampelias@ckarampelias.bsky.social · last yr.

Check out the latest manuscript from the @heikolickert.bsky.social lab on generating a defined stem-cell derived islet product for transplantation. A thorough characterization of the system particularly by our star PhD students Nike and Nicole! #PancSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through what he said were misguided cuts to US development assistance www.ft.com/content/bdd9...

Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of ‘killing’ children with USAID cuts

Billionaire reopens feud with Tesla chief as he unveils plan to spend $200bn on philanthropy and close foundation in 2045

ft.com

Looking forward…

German Stem Cell Network GSCN@gscnoffice.bsky.social · last yr.

@heikolickert.bsky.social and Julian Heuberger speak at the hybrid Stem Cell Club on 15 May. 👉 bit.ly/3BT9pVE #diabetes #organoids #stemcells #stammzellen @mdc-bimsb.bsky.social @mdc-berlin.bsky.social @bihatcharite.bsky.social @tuberlin.bsky.social @www.helmholtz-munich.de @dkfz.bsky.social

Zum Frühlingsanfang eine kleine Frühlingsgeschichte: Über frostige Nächte und aufplatzende Knospen, über Abschiede und Schmetterlinge im Bauch, Ostseemuscheln und Eselsohren und warum Tauben Tauben heißen

Requiem auf ein Fahrrad

Über frostige Nächte und aufplatzende Knospen, über Abschiede und Schmetterlinge im Bauch, Ostseemuscheln und Eselsohren und warum Tauben Tauben heißen

steadyhq.com

taking a dive into Andy Kaufman's career, and nothing prepared me for this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYV...

Andy Kaufman: "I Trusted You"

YouTube video by Pete Peterson

youtube.com

My prior home towns, like Manhattan and San Francisco, never had the burst of flowering trees every Spring, like the DC area. It’s dazzling each time.

This clearly will get worse with our dependency on computers, mobile phones, social media, AI, and even worse, we will be manipulated without having a chance - so for me it is clear, this trend will continue and we will lose our natural Intelligence…

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 2y ago

NEW 🧵 Is human intelligence starting to decline? Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s What should we make of this? www.ft.com/content/a801...

Great complementary pig organoid model pioneered and established from the one and only @ckarampelias.bsky.social. Excellent work, check it out…

Christos Karampelias@ckarampelias.bsky.social · 2y ago

Happy to share our work on pancreatic ductal organoids from the human-relevant pig model across developmental stages ranging from embryonic to adult animals and using them for drug screening applications from the @heikolickert.bsky.social lab. #PancSky #devbio 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... /1

Some thoughts on the new dynamic uncertain status and need for US-Canada Science diplomacy www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Uphold US-Canada science

A partnership can be demanding, and as with any couple, can have good days and bad. The United States–Canada relationship is most definitely having a bad one. It’s difficult to fully comprehend all th...

science.org

Excited to share our recent review on the insulin-IGF receptor signaling!

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology@natrevmcb.nature.com · 2y ago

New Online! Regulation and function of insulin and insulin-like growth factor receptor signalling

Fantastic work - congratulations Scott and team!

Christos Karampelias@ckarampelias.bsky.social · 2y ago

I mean what an encyclopaedia of a paper was that by @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social and colleagues www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... amazing work and a compendium for mitochondrial biology in metabolic tissues. Have you seen this @heikolickert.bsky.social ? #PancSky

Final count down, just a few more days until registration closes…

Heiko Lickert@heikolickert.bsky.social · 2y ago

Application deadline is get closer - make sure you do not miss this exciting EMBO workshop on liver and pancreatic biology and disease 😉 meetings.embo.org/event/25-liv...

Exciting new tool to make the most out of multimodal single-cell data from our friends and long-term collaborators of the @fabian_theis lab - check it out, it works beautifully and really makes sense out of your complex data! 👇👍😉

Fabian Theis@fabiantheis.bsky.social · 2y ago

Excited to see Moscot (moscot-tools.org) published in @Nature! We scaled Optimal Transport (OT) in single-cell genomics & added multimodality together with spatiotemporal trajectory inference, finding exciting new biology in the pancreas! 🚀 Read at www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Application deadline is get closer - make sure you do not miss this exciting EMBO workshop on liver and pancreatic biology and disease 😉 meetings.embo.org/event/25-liv...

Liver and pancreas in metabolic disease: from pathways to therapies

The liver and pancreas arise from a common developmental origin and are controlled by shared gene regulatory programs.These organs are central to two of the most common and devastating metabolic dise…

meetings.embo.org

Want to delve deep into liver and pancreas biology in a beautiful setting? Join us April 1–4 at the EMBO Workshop in the beautiful coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Girona), Spain! Organized w/ Ines Cebola, @jorge-ferrer.bsky.social @heikolickert.bsky.social & Ludovic Vallier. bit.ly/4g8zajj

our newest preprint! Led by Zoe Grant in my lab and Shuzen Kuang in Katie Pollard's lab here at Gladstone. "Dose-dependent sensitivity of human 3D chromatin to a heart disease-linked transcription factor" 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Exciting news from BlueRock Therapeutics & Bayer on upcoming phase III trial for our DA neuron cell therapy in Parkinson’s disease. www.bluerocktx.com/bluerock-the...

BlueRock Therapeutics advances investigational cell therapy bemdaneprocel for treating Parkinson’s disease to registrational Phase III clinical trial - BlueRock Therapeutics LP

BlueRock will initiate a Phase III clinical trial for bemdaneprocel, its investigational cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease. It is expected to begin in the first half of 2025 and will represent a si...

bluerocktx.com

Nice findings on Beta cell dysfunction studied in human pancreatic slices during type 1 diabetes progression, interesting findings on calcium dynamics #BetaSky @eaphelps.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Beta cell dysfunction occurs independently of insulitis in type 1 diabetes pathogenesis

During type 1 diabetes (T1D) progression, beta cells become dysfunctional and exhibit reduced first-phase insulin release. While this period of beta cell dysfunction is well established, its cause and...

biorxiv.org

I'm at a point where I'm honestly vaguely surprised that anyone who isn't an admitted fascist (or at least fascist-comfortable) and/or a corporate account is still actively on the former Twitter. The best time to have left is long gone, but the second-best time is now. www.pcmag.com/opinions/my-...

My #1 New Year's Resolution: Dump Twitter, Embrace Bluesky

I'm quitting Twitter in 2025, and you should, too. Join me in jumping over to the platform that brings fun back to social media.

pcmag.com

My favorite books, 2024

Join us in a beautiful location for this multidisciplinary experience. Top speakers linking topics such as organoid modeling, synthetic biology, gene regulation or genetics with disease mechanisms & new therapies for T1D, T2D, and MASLD meetings.embo.org/event/25-liver-pancreas

Liver and pancreas in metabolic disease: from pathways to therapies

The liver and pancreas arise from a common developmental origin and are controlled by shared gene regulatory programs.These organs are central to two of the most common and devastating metabolic dise…

meetings.embo.org