Lab Interests:
The focus of the Nostro lab is to identify the molecular determinants that control endoderm specification and pancreatic lineage commitment, using directed differentiation of human Pluripotent Stem Cells (hPSC) as a model system. Our ultimate goal is to generate islet surrogates for diabetes treatment. Our group has defined critical pathways leading to the efficient generation of hPSC-derived pancreatic progenitors in vitro and recently, using proteomics approaches, identified a specific marker that allows the purification of these β cell progenitors. We are striving to improve the differentiation protocols to generate β-like cell in vitro and develop novel transplantation approaches for type 1 diabetes therapy.