Date of Completion

2023

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Larner College of Medicine

Thesis Type

Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors

First Advisor

Tom Jetton

Second Advisor

Giuseppe Petrucci

Third Advisor

Leon Lifschutz

Keywords

Diabetes, a7R agonists, Pancreatic b-cells, Treatment for Type 1 Diabetes, GTS-21

Abstract

Diabetes involves the loss of functional pancreatic ß-cells, the source of insulin production in the body. Many treatments for diabetes exist including multiple forms of insulin injection, metformin, biguanides, gut hormone analogs, etc. However, all of these treat diabetic symptoms but do not directly affect ß-cells, and often have detrimental side effects making them undesirable long term treatments. This thesis will focus on identifying primarily GTS-21 as an a7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (a7R) agonist in an in vitro screening assay to look for its effectiveness in restoring ß-cell function and survival through stimulating the anti-inflammatory pathway via a7R activation. The culmination of this work will characterize the potential of this human safe a7R agonist as a means for future in vivo testing and eventual use as a novel diabetes treatments.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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