Eli Lilly
Advancing research and supporting the T1D community
Lilly has been a stalwart supporter of JDRF for close to 25 years.
In May 2020, JDRF and Lilly partnered to advance stem cell-based therapy research in Canada with the renewal of a fellowship that was launched in 2019.
Dr. Rangarajan Sambathkumar, a pioneering young investigator at the University Health Network in Toronto, has been awarded a second post-doctoral fellowship ($60,000) for his stem cell research, based on an ongoing collaboration between JDRF Canada and Eli Lilly Canada Inc. (Lilly Canada).
Eli Lilly and Company is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to people who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and contribute to their communities through philanthropy and volunteerism.
Established in 2019, this partnered program funds new and innovative research and is called the JDRF Canadian Clinical Trial Network (CCTN) Eli Lilly Post-doctoral Fellowship in Clinical Translation in Type 1 Diabetes. Under the mentorship of Dr. Cristina Nostro, Dr. Sambathkumar has been working on improving beta cell maturation from human embryonic stem cells using in vitro genetic engineering for the development of a cell-based therapy for type 1 diabetes. Human stem cells may be the key to large-scale beta cell replacement therapy since they can divide indefinitely.
There has been considerable progress in the generation of insulin-producing beta-like cells from various stem cell lines. Dr. Sambathkumar’s current JDRF and Lilly-funded study will advance this promising new area of research in diabetes. With the creation of better beta cells for transplantation, this research may contribute to beta cell replacement therapies that could one day cure T1D.
Lilly is a JDRF champion in a multitude of ways. In addition to supporting the JDRF Canadian Clinical Trial Network (CCTN) Eli Lilly Post-doctoral Fellowship in Clinical Translation in Type 1 Diabetes, they are key sponsors of events and help to fund educational materials for the T1D community.
Lilly was a national sponsor of the Let’s Talk T1D Education Series and was a funding contributor that allowed us to create a new information guide for newly diagnosed patients called Begin With Hope. With individualized guides tailored to children, teens, adults, and their caregivers – these materials will be distributed at the time of diagnosis to overwhelmed families to let them know that they are not alone.
Their support allowed us to better navigate COVID-19 and develop new ways of connecting and providing critical information to people living with T1D. We would like to extend a huge thank you to the entire Eli Lilly community for their continued support in our mission to turn type one into type none.
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