PANCRYOS ’s technology is based on several publications and patents that lay the foundation for the company. Most recently the founders published a ground-breaking study entitled: “Efficient generation of glucose-responsive beta cells from isolated GP2+ human pancreatic progenitors”. The work, published in the journal Cell Reports in April 2017, is the culmination of several years of extensive effort. It describes the identification of GP2 as a specific marker of human pancreatic endoderm cells (PECs) and demonstrate that the isolated GP2⁺ PECs generate cultures enriched in glucose-responsive insulin-producing cells. By eliminating undifferentiated hESCs this work provides a new concept for safe manufacturing of endocrine cells for future diabetes cell therapy. Learn more about the technology. 

In collaboration with Professor Raphaël Scharfmann’s team at INSERM, Paris, PANCRYOS founders Jacqueline Ameri and Henrik Semb recently also published a follow-up study entitled “Reconstructing human pancreatic differentiation by mapping specific cell populations during development” in the journal eLIFE. In this study human fetal pancreas was used as model system and further support is presented for their observation that GP2 indeed marks a multipotent cell population with the capacity to differentiate into the acinar, ductal or endocrine lineages.

Mamidi, A., Prawiro, C., Seymour, P.A., de Lichtenberg, K.H., Jackson, A., Serup, P., and Semb, H. (2018). Mechanosignalling via integrins directs fate decisions of pancreatic progenitors. Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0762-2

Ramond, Cyrille, Nicolas Glaser, Claire Berthault, Jacqueline Ameri, Jeannette Schlichting Kirkegaard, Mattias Hansson, Christian Honoré, Henrik Semb, Raphaël Scharfmann (2017). Reconstructing human pancreatic differentiation by mapping specific populations during development. eLife 2017;6:e27564, doi: 10.7554/eLife.27564.

Ameri, Jacqueline, Rehannah Borup, Christy Prawiro, Cyrille Ramond, Karen A. Schachter, Raphael Scharfmann & Henrik Semb (2017). Efficient generation of glucose-responsive beta cells from isolated GP2+ human pancreatic progenitors.  Cell Reports,19,36-49, doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.03.032.

ISOLATION OF BONA FIDE PANCREATIC PROGENITOR CELLS. Inventors: Jacqueline Ameri and Henrik Semb, Applicant: University of Copenhagen. WO/2016/170069

METHOD FOR PRODUCTION OF INSULIN PRODUCING CELLS. Inventors: Anant Mamidi and Henrik Semb, Applicant: University of Copenhagen. WO/2016/170067