Background
Melton, Douglas A. was born on September 26, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
molecular and cell biology educator
Melton, Douglas A. was born on September 26, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Melton completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1975. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in the History and Philosophy of Science in 1977. Under a Marshall Scholarship, Melton did his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge supervised by John Gurdon.
Additionally, Melton serves as the co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the co-chair of the Harvard University Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Melton"s early work in the 1980s pioneered the technique of in vitro transcription. This later shifted to general developmental biology research in Xenopus, and eventually in the mid-1990s, became centered on the development of the pancreas.
In 2001 when President George West. Bush cut federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, Melton used private donations to create 17 published stem cell lines and distribute them without charge to researchers around the world.
In August 2008, Melton"s lab published successful in vivo reprogramming of adult mice exocrine pancreatic cells into insulin secreting cells which closely resembled endogenous islet beta cells of pancreas in terms of their size, shape, ultrastructure and essential marker genes. Unlike producing beta cells from conventional embryonic stem cells or recently developed induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS) technique, Melton"s unique method involved direct cell reprogramming of adult cell type (exocrine cell) into other adult cell type (beta cell) without reversion to a pluripotent stem cell state.
His team used a specific combination of three transcription factors, Ngn3 (or Neurog3), Pdx1 and Mafa for such direct cell reprogramming to yield cells capable of secreting insulin and remodelling local vasculature in pancreas to counteract hyperglycemia and diabetes. In 2013, the Melton group reported the discovery of Betatrophin, a hormone that signals the proliferation of insulin-producing Beta cells.
National Academy of Sciences]
Melton serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy Institute, holds membership in the National Academy of the Sciences, and is a founding member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
Married Gail Melton; children: Sam, Emma.