Septembra 2019 je naša skupina organizirala mednarodno znanstveno srečanje Islet Society Meeting 2019: https://www.isletsociety2019.eu/ . Glavna organizatorja sta bila člana programa prof. dr. Marjan Slak Rupnik ter izr. prof. dr. Andraž Stožer. Srečanje, na katerem so vabljena predavanja imeli številni vrhunski znanstveniki poteka pod okriljem svetovno priznanega društva Islet Society, ki se prvenstveno ukvarja s preučevanjem Langerhansovih otočkov v kontekstu sladkorne bolezni.
B.01 Organizator znanstvenega srečanja
COBISS.SI-ID: 000000Učna aktivnost na podlagi kliničnih primerov za medicinske študente na Medicinski Univerzi na Dunaju, Center za fiziologijo in farmakologijo. Oktober 2020-februar 2021
B.05 Gostujoči profesor na inštitutu/univerzi
COBISS.SI-ID: 19432451Beta cells within organs called Islets of Langerhans display calcium oscillations in response to natural stimuli. These oscillations in intracellular calcium concentration are vital for normal insulin secretion that is in turn critical for normal glucose homeostasis. Heteroand homologous gap junction coupling between cells within islets are most probably the mechanistic substrate allowing for the spreading of information across an islet, forming a complex syncytium of interconnected endocrine cells. Many biological systems were shown to express self-organized critical dynamics implying a power-law distribution of observables, including population of cells within networks of coupled beta cells. To gain further insight in the population dynamics, we systematically explored the mechanisms that drive the critical and supercritical behavior using both an experimental and a computational approach. Experimentally, we made use of confocal imaging of intracellular calcium concentration dynamics of beta cell populations in acute mouse pancreas tissue slices. We demonstrated that beta cells respond to stimulation with glucose in a biphasic manner that was concentration-dependent. The first phase, also called activation phase, displayed critical behavior under low stimulation levels with a power-law distribution of calcium wave sizes, whereas pathophysiologically high glucose concentrations elicited re sponses that were more rapid, less continuous, and supercritical. The subsequent phase, also called plateau phase, was characterized by a high number of global intercellular calcium waves irrespective of glucose levels. In the next step, we built a phenomenological model of coupled excitable cells in an attempt to gain an insight into the experimentally observed complex dynamical patterns. A good overlap between computational and experimental data was attained when both heterogeneous and stimulus-dependent time lags, variability in excitability levels, as well as a heterogeneous cell-cell coupling were included into the model. Thus, the presented model allows to determine key mechanism of self-organized criticality at the level of insulin secreting cells within islets.
B.04 Vabljeno predavanje
COBISS.SI-ID: 97940481V zadnjih dveh desetletjih smo priča enormnemu napredku mrežne znanosti, ki postaja ena izmed centralnih paradigem in odkritij 21. stoletja. Preprost način, da lahko z vozli in povezavami opišemo najrazličnejše aspekte realnih sistemov se dandanes uporablja za preiskovanje različnih bioloških sistemov na različnih velikostnih skalah. V predavanju so bila opisana zadnja dognanja na področju raziskav kompleksnih bioloških sistemov, ki so bile inspirirane in omogočene z metodami mrežne znanosti. Posebna pozornost je bila namenjena izločanju vzorcev funkcionalne povezanosti iz visokoločkjivostnih posnetkov konfokalne mikroskopije svežih tkivnih rezin pankreasa, s katerimi smo preučevali kolektivno aktivnost populacij celic beta, ki izločajo inzulin. Opis medceličnih vzorcev povezanosti z vidika mrežne znanosti ni le pokazal, da imajo mreže celic beta podobne lastnosti kot številni drugi realni sistemi, kot so lastnosti malega sveta, heterogenost in modularnost, pač pa nam omogoča tudi nov vpogled v zvezo med celično metabolno aktivnostjo in uravnavanje kolektivne celične aktivnosti. V zaključnem delu je bil izpostavljen tudi nov vidik večplastnih mrež in njihov potencial za raziskave kompleksne organizacije tkiv, v zdravju in bolezni.
B.04 Vabljeno predavanje
COBISS.SI-ID: 512967224Marko (član uredniškega odbora 2014-). [Online ed.]. New York (NY): Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 2006-. ISSN 1748-6718. .
C.06 Članstvo v uredniškem odboru
COBISS.SI-ID: 518832409