Rome, Oct. 31. (Adnkronos Salute) — Teresa Mezza, medical director of the Fondazione Policlinico universitario Agostino Gemelli Irccs in Rome and researcher at the Catholic University, received the Alcmeone award of the Italian Society of Diabetology, during the 29th National Congress of the SID held in Rimini. The prize is awarded to researchers under 45 and ‘smart’ who have particularly distinguished themselves in diabetes research. Mezza, born in 1985, has already published over 30 publications in journals with a high impact factor; she is also the mother of a daughter, born last year, underlines a note from Gemelli.
«In my report, I presented a sort of 4D journey through the natural history of type 2 diabetes, which winds through the functionality, mass, morphology and molecular regulation of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells at various stages of disease development. In recent years my research activity has completely focused on the study of the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for the dysfunction of insulin-producing cells and on the morphological and phenotypic alterations of pancreatic beta cells, which appear in the natural history of diabetes».
«In particular — details Mezza — with my research I tried to trace the natural history of diabetes, correlating the various stages of functionality of these cells ‘in vivo’ (ie in the patient) and the corresponding morphological / molecular state of the islets ‘ex vivo’ (ie on surgical pieces of pancreas), in order to identify and observe from different angles all the steps that characterize the natural history of diabetes, from the metabolically healthy subject to the patient with full-blown type 2 diabetes, in order to identify the mechanisms that characterize the different phases.This study model, on which other ongoing research projects are also based, is focused on partial pancreatictomy, carried out at the Pancreatic Surgical Center of the Gemelli University Polyclinic Foundation directed by Professor Sergio Alfieri, professor of General Surgery at the Cattolica, for various pathologies, on patients in different metabolic conditions».
The results of these researches, which have led to numerous publications in international scientific journals such as the ‘Journal of Clinical Investigation’ — continues the note — have allowed to highlight some compensation mechanisms that allow people to be protected from diabetes until they reach the point of ‘no return’, due to the failure of these mechanisms. It is the beginning of a phase of decline in pancreatic function, characterized by cellular stress, by the ‘loss of identity’ of the cells that produce insulin, and which leads to the inability to produce functioning (mature) insulin.
«The study of adaptation mechanisms and the understanding of the key pathways involved in this process — highlights Mezza — is important for the development of strategies capable of inducing and enhancing compensation mechanisms, which could lead to a potential treatment of type 2 diabetes or its prevention.Finally, we are trying to identify biomarkers of early beta cell dysfunction and compensation mechanisms, to identify people at risk of rapid clinical decline and then personalize the therapeutic intervention.»
«Type 2 diabetes — comments Andrea Giaccari, associate professor of Endocrinology at the Catholic University and director of the Center for Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Endocrinology Unit of the Policlinico Gemelli Foundation, directed by Professor Alfredo Pontecorvi — is only apparently a simple disease. Although all people with diabetes have in common the presence of hyperglycemia, each has its own history, a specific cause of its diabetes. A good doctor must understand the cause of the disease well. The passion in understanding the why of things then becomes a passion for research, study, exploration».
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Source — https://www.univadis.it/viewarticle/diabetologia-a-giovane-scienziata-gemelli-roma-premio-alcmeone