Professor Neville Vassallo, who heads a research team at the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, has been awarded a grant by the Research Excellence Programme of the Malta Council of Science & Technology (DIAMYLOID), to explore the molecular underpinnings of a metabolic disease which is highly prevalent in Malta 鈥 namely, type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
One interesting aspect of T2DM, explained Prof. Vassallo, is that during the course of the disease, the pancreas (the organ which makes and releases insulin) is gradually destroyed by enlarging deposits of a substance called 鈥渁myloid鈥. The amyloid is made up of clumps of a protein produced by the pancreas, known as the 鈥渋slet amyloid polypeptide鈥, or IAPP. This clumping, or aggregation, process is actually very similar to what we see happening in Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, when plaques of the amyloid-beta peptide are formed and cause brain degeneration.
鈥淚f we consider diabetes as primarily an amyloid disorder, then it makes sense to try and develop new strategies to treat diabetic patients which are aimed at either preventing the aggregation of the IAPP peptide, or rendering the amyloid clumps less harmful鈥, Prof. Vassallo said. Indeed, an important part of the research involves a collaboration with the in G枚ttingen, Germany, on a set of small-molecule chemical compounds, with the aim of identifying those compounds that are most able to interfere with the clumping process of the IAPP peptide.
The project will also look at whether amyloid clumps can cause mitochondrial dysfunction 鈥 mitochondria are critical for the process of insulin release by the pancreatic cells. Ultimately, concludes Prof. Vassallo, 鈥渙nly through such basic research and an in-depth understanding of the disease process will we be able to offer new drugs for the treatment of T2DM, and other amyloid diseases.鈥
