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The European Diabetes Foundation and Novo Nordisk fund a project at IRB Barcelona

By 27 de August de 2012November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 27.08.2012

The European Diabetes Foundation and Novo Nordisk fund a project at IRB Barcelona

The project "The role of glycogen metabolism in the pancreatic beta-cell" conducted by the lab headed by Joan J. Guinovart, director of IRB Barcelona, will receive funding from the European Foundation for the study of Diabetes (EFSD) and the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, within the "Partnership for Diabetes Research in Europe" Programme 2012. The eight projects awarded funding in this European call will start in Autum.


Guinovart, head of the “Metabolic Engineering and Diabetes” group at IRB Barcelona and senior professor at the University of Barcelona, seeks to clarify the influence of glycogen metabolism on the sensitivity of beta cells to glucose. The aim is to reveal new possibilities for the preservation or recovery of this sensitivity in diabetes. Beta cells are a kind of pancreatic cell that produce and segregate insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar levels. “In diabetic patients and in lab animals we have observed that the overaccumulation of glycogen – a kind of sugar – in pancreatic beta cells contributes to their dysfunction”, explains the director of the project.

The funding of this project, which will last one and a half years, amounts to 100,000 euros. For its implementation, Joan J. Guinovart will be collaborating with Ramon Gomis, from the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and Xavier Correig, director of the Metabolomics Platform of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), in Tarragona.