Lily Kisseur

Type 1 diabetes affects millions worldwide and is characterized by the body’s either not being able to produce enough insulin or producing no insulin at all. Insulin is a hormone needed to transport glucose into cells for energy and is produced in the pancreas. Although insulin treatment is available, its growing costs hinder its accessibility. High costs cause people with the disease to ration their medicine which can lead to dangerous outcomes. Curcumin, a compound derived from turmeric, has shown promising results in treating type 1 diabetes. Unfortunately, curcumin has poor bioavailability making it difficult for it to be absorbed in the body, so researchers have started to use analogues for further research into the properties of curcumin. The goal of this research is to observe if using B2BrBc and C66 as a preventive treatment increases the expression of insulin in rat pancreas β cells. To test this, mice are treated with the respective analogs before type 1 diabetes is induced. The expression of insulin in mice β cells treated with B2BrBc or C66 is compared with the insulin expression of β cells induced with type 1 diabetes without treatment. The results show that there is a higher expression of insulin in the diabetic mice treated with the analogs than for diabetic mice that weren’t treated. When used as a preventive treatment, C66 and B2BrBc helped to increase insulin expression in type 1 diabetic mice, providing data for its use as a potential treatment. Regarding future work, the lab aims to understand the mechanism behind how C66 and B2BrBc work by studying their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.