Home Department: Undeclared
Mentor: Justin Annes (Medicine - Endocrinology)

"Optimizing Zinc-Chelating GNF Compounds for β-Cell-Targeted Drug Delivery and Regeneration"

Loss of insulin-producing pancreatic β-cells is a pathologic hallmark of diabetes that could be reversed by regenerative therapy. Although β-cell replication-inducing compounds exist, lack of cell-type specificity limits clinical utility. To address this challenge, the Annes lab developed zinc-chelating hybrid compounds (βRepZnC) with the replication drug, GNF-2133 to leverage the uniquely high zinc content of β-cells for targeted action. Isabella’s project will evaluate the in vitro and in vivo bioactivity and specificity of βRepZnC using mouse models. The overall goal is to enable precise regenerative therapies for diabetes.