Toward understanding pancreatic disease: from architecture to cell signaling.

Each year the American Pancreatic Association sponsors the Frank Brooks Memorial State of the Art Lecture. The following Frank Brooks Memorial Lecture was delivered at the combined meeting of the American Pancreatic Association and the International Association of Pancreatology, which was held in Chicago, Illinois, November 2-4, 1994. The presentation emphasizes the necessity for understanding the normal architecture of the pancreas, and the nature of the changes that occur, as important steps in understanding the origins and progression of pancreatic disease. A central theme is the plasticity of the cells that comprise the pancreas. Encouraging new insights are being derived from studies that determine the signaling molecules that regulate proliferation and differentiation, including those studies using transgenes.