Inhibitors of Src and focal adhesion kinase promote endocrine specification: impact on the derivation of beta-cells from human pluripotent stem cells.

hESC-derived beta cells can become a renewable source of beta cells to treat type I diabetes. However, the differentiation of hESCs into beta cells is not efficient. In this report, we describe a novel approach to improve the differentiation efficiency. This advance could be helpful for clinical development of hESC-based cell therapy of type 1 diabetes.