With a goal of advancing regenerative medicine approaches to treating diabetes, ISCRM fellow Mark Andrade will explore the feasibility of activating Sonic Hedghog and/or Wnt signaling in pancreatic beta-cells “after” they have differentiated into endocrine cells and will test whether the competency of beta-cells to replicate as a result of αE-catenin downregulation may change as a function of age, and/or in response to injury and metabolic stressors.