This week, he and his colleagues report a potentially significant step toward that goal: a recipe that can turn
human stem cells into
functional pancreatic β cells — the cells that are destroyed by the body's own
immune system in type 1 diabetes patients such as Melton's son and daughter.
For understanding the biology of gene - gene, gene - drug and gene - microenvironment interactions, a considerably broader range of in vitro and in vivo model
systems is required — we are generating 1,000 organoid cultures from
human cancers, characterising their genomes,
functional dependencies and drug response, and we are expanding our in vivo models to study the interface between cancer and the
immune system and microenvironment.
He taught me a lot about evolutionary medicine and nutrition in general, opened many doors and introduced me (directly and indirectly) to various players in this field, such as Dr. Boyd Eaton (one of the fathers of evolutionary nutrition), Maelán Fontes from Spain (a current research colleague and close friend), Alejandro Lucia (a Professor and a top researcher in exercise physiology from Spain, with whom I am collaborating), Ben Balzer from Australia (a physician and one of the best minds in evolutionary medicine), Robb Wolf from the US (a biochemist and the best «biohackers I know»), Óscar Picazo and Fernando Mata from Spain (close friends who are working with me at NutriScience), David Furman from Argentina (a top immunologist and expert in chronic inflammation working at Stanford University, with whom I am collaborating), Stephan Guyenet from the US (one of my main references in the obesity field), Lynda Frassetto and Anthony Sebastian (both nephrologists at the University of California San Francisco and experts in acid - base balance), Michael Crawford from the UK (a world renowned expert in DHA and Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and
Human Nutrition, at the Imperial College London), Marcelo Rogero (a great researcher and Professor of Nutrigenomics at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Sérgio Veloso (a cell biologist from Portugal currently working with me, who has one of the best health blogs I know), Filomena Trindade (a Portuguese physician based in the US who is an expert in
functional medicine), Remko Kuipers and Martine Luxwolda (both physicians from the Netherlands, who conducted field research on traditional populations in Tanzania), Gabriel de Carvalho (a pharmacist and renowned nutritionist from Brazil), Alex Vasquez (a physician from the US, who is an expert in
functional medicine and Rheumatology), Bodo Melnik (a Professor of Dermatology and expert in Molecular Biology from Germany, with whom I have published papers on milk and mTOR signaling), Johan Frostegård from Sweden (a rheumatologist and Professor at Karolinska Institutet, who has been a pioneer on establishing the role of the
immune system in cardiovascular disease), Frits Muskiet (a biochemist and Professor of Pathophysiology from the Netherlands, who, thanks to his incredible encyclopedic knowledge and open - mind, continuously teaches me more than I could imagine and who I consider a mentor), and the Swedish researchers Staffan Lindeberg, Tommy Jönsson and Yvonne Granfeldt, who became close friends and mentors.