Reunion discussion: the importance of embryology

This past weekend we had the 46th year reunion of our University of Manitoba Medical Class of 1960 in Winnipeg. At our final event - breakfast at Earl's in Polo Park - I was sitting next to the wife of one of my classmates, Wilson R. an endocriniologist who practices in London, Ontario. His wife said that this past summer Wilson received a special award in Edmonton for his work on diabetes.

After expressing my congratulations to Wilson who was sitting across the round table from me I mentioned that as an alumnus of the University of Alberta (where I received my M.Sc. in Biochemistry from in 1952) that I had the opportunity some 2 years ago to hear one of their transplantation team speak on the research they were doing in Edmonton on islet cell transplantation. (see my earlier blog) I further mentioned that I had commented at the presentation that although the islet of Langerhan beta cells reside in the pancreas, they are actually nervous tissue since embryologically they were derived from the neural crest - much like the chromaffin cells of the adrenal gland. (see my other blog).

WhenWilson commented that newborns with congenital Rubella syndrome (babies born to mothers who are exposed to Rubella during their pregnancy) often also have diabetes as part of their Rubella syndrome, I was glad because it added further support to my theory. I strongly believe we should be treating Diabetes as a neurological disease, just like polio - a disease which causes muscular weakness and paralysis because of its cytotoxicity not to myotomes but to neurons.