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Return to: Schedule of Events
Alumni Weekend Special Lecture
 Friday, June 6, 2003 - Lillie Auditorium, 8:00 pm
Seeking stem cells to understand pancreatic development and treat diabetes
Douglas Melton, Ph.D., Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences, Harvard University
Lecture Abstract:
All of our tissues and organs maintain their proper cell numbers by a balance between cell death and cell replacement. In this process of continuous renewal, stem cells provide new cells to replace those that have died naturally or by disease. The aim of our research is to understand how stem cells make the pancreas during development and how they maintain the organ in adults. Our goal is to use this information to make more pancreatic cells, specifically, the pancreatic beta cell that makes insulin. This approach speaks to basic questions about organ development and is relevant to possible cell replacement therapies for diabetes.
Douglas Melton, Ph.D. After years of work aimed at understanding how genes set up the body pattern of the early frog embryo, Dr. Douglas Melton is now focused on the goal of making pancreatic tissue in culture for transplantation into people with diabetes. This challenging project involves understanding the embryonic formation of the pancreas and the role of stem cells in pancreatic development.
Dr. Melton is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences at Harvard University. He is also a co-director of Harvard’s Center for Genomic Research and Associate Director of the JDRF/Harvard Islet Transplantation Center.
Born in Chicago, Dr. Melton earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Illinois and then went to Cambridge University in England as a Marshall Scholar. He earned a B.A. in history and philosophy of science at Cambridge and remained there to earn a Ph.D. in molecular biology at Trinity College and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the author of over 100 publications.
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