Research and Therapy Developments 
135 
easily evaluated, partly because the criteria for characterizing 
the cells are not standardized. In a recent paper, Lechner and 
Habener provided a list of six criteria to define the characteris- 
tics of pancreas-derived “beta-like” cells that could be poten- 
tially useful in treatment of Type-1 diabetes.^^ 
We have used those criteria to facilitate assessment of the 
current state of progress toward development of functional 
“beta-like" cells that might eventually be tested in Type-1 dia- 
betes patients. Table 1 summarizes and compares the proper- 
ties of human cell preparations recently produced in research 
seeking this objective by Abraham et al.,"^® Zulewski et al.,"^^ 
Assady et al.,"^® Zhao et al.,"^® and Zalzman et al.,®° and tested in 
mouse models of human diabetes. 
! 
I 
I 
1 
! 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
