Pancreatic islets are highly specialized mini-organs that regulate blood glucose by secreting insulin, glucagon, and other hormones in response to physiologic stimuli such as glucose. A deficiency or a dysfunction of the insulin-producing β cells of the islet is critical to the development of all forms of diabetes.

The Powers & Brissova group is working to understand and reverse β cell and islet abnormalities and dysfunction in diabetes. In our projects, we are studying the pathogenesis of human diabetes by conducting, translating, and integrating studies about the human pancreas and islet biology.

Our research team of scientists, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, medical students, undergraduate students, and research assistants has interdisciplinary collaborations with cell biologists, developmental biologists, biomedical engineers, geneticists, and bioinformaticians at Vanderbilt and around the world (Philadelphia, Palo Alto, New York, Alberta, Gainesville, Worcester, Austin, Denver, Chicago, Melbourne, Miami, Dresden, and Bar Harbor). We are part of the NIH-funded Human Islet Research Network (HIRN), the Human Pancreas Analysis Program (HPAP), the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP), and the Multicenter Assessment of the Pancreas in Type 1 Diabetes (MAP-T1D).

The Powers & Brissova Research Group is part of the Diabetes Center, the Department of Medicine, and the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt. Our research is supported by the NIH/NIDDK, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Research program, and The Helmsley Charitable Trust.

At the May 2023 Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Faculty Assembly (Faculty Awards), Al Powers and Marcela Brissova received JOHN A. OATES, MD, Award for Faculty Working Collaboratively or in a Multidisciplinary Manner to Address Important Biological Processes and/or Diseases based in their discoveries about the development, vascularization, innervation, function, and dysfunction of pancreatic islets.

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