SOTA 07: Islet Transplantation: Immunology and Physiology
Ron Gill
Ron Gill, PhD, is Professor of Surgery and Immunology, and the Scientific Director of the Colorado Center for Transplantation Care, Research and Education (CCTCARE) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Gill’s interest’s center on the transplantation of pancreatic cells as a treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes. He has served as an expert panelist on the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Executive Committee and Chair of the Transplant Study Section for the National Institutes of Health. He has published over 120 articles on transplant immunology.
Prior to returning to the University of Colorado in 2009 he was the Scientific Director and the Dr. Charles A. Allard Chair in Diabetes Research at the Alberta Diabetes Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. He was also served as Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta.
Bart Roep
Dr. Bart O. Roep is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Diabetology & Immunopathology, director of the Diabetes Center of Excellence, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences and head of the Section of Autoimmune Diseases at the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands. After studying medical sciences at the University of Amsterdam, he obtained his PhD in medicine (cum laude) in Leiden in 1992. He has focused on the role of T cells in diabetes assessing human cellular immune responses, autoantigen identification, and islet allograft rejection and the design and immunological monitoring of immunointervention strategies and islet transplantation in clinical type 1 diabetes. In 2002, he received the prestigious Minkowski Prize for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the field of diabetes mellitus. Dr. Roep has published more than 250 articles. He is founder and director of the Diabetes TrialNetherlands platform for clinical immune intervention therapy in The Netherlands.
David E.R.Sutherland, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. David Sutherland graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1966. He interned at W.Virginia University, served 2 years in the U.S. Army, completed his Surgical Residency and a Transplant Fellowship at the University of Minnesota in 1975, and joined the University faculty in 1976 where he has spent his entire career. He was promoted to Professor of Surgery in 1984 and was Head of the Division of Transplantation from 1994 to 2009. He has been Director of the Diabetes Institute for Immunology and Transplantation (now Schulze DI) since its founding in 1994 and is holder of the Dobbs Diabetes Research Chair.
A transplant surgeon, Dr. Sutherland has trained numerous surgeons heading organ and pancreatic transplant programs worldwide and has overseen more than 2000 pancreas transplants at Minnesoa.He founded the International Pancreas Transplant Registry in 1980. He performed the world's first clinical islet transplant in 1974 and developing minimally invasive beta cell replacement therapy as an alternative to insulin therapy or pancreas transplantation to treat diabetes has dominated Dr. Sutherland's research interests. He also initiated preservation of beta cell mass by islet auto-transplantation at the time of total pancreatectomy for chronic pancreatitis in 1977, with nearly 400 done to date.
Dr. Sutherland is Past President (2004-2006) of The Transplantation Society, the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Society (1997), the Cell Transplantation Society (1996), and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (1990-91). He has been Editor of the journal Clinical Transplantation in January 2007.
Dr. Sutherland is author or co-author on over 1500 publications, most focused on transplantation clinical and basic research.
Michael Rickels
Dr. Rickels is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he conducts patient-oriented diabetes research that aims at understanding the in vivo mechanisms of new diabetes treatments. Dr. Rickels' studies involve methodologies for quantifying insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, and glucose counter-regulatory responses to hypoglycemia, and include the frequently-sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test, the glucose-potentiated arginine test, and hyperinsulinemic euglycemic and hypoglycemic clamps. Present work is directed at the effects of isolated islet or whole pancreas transplantation on insulin secretion and sensitivity in type 1 diabetic subjects, the effects of islet transplantation on glucose counter-regulatory defenses against hypoglycemia, the effects of the incretin hormone GLP-1 on insulin secretion in islet and pancreas transplant recipients, and the effects on insulin secretion of different strategies for enhancing GLP-1 action in type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Rickels’ clinical practice specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes, hypoglycemia disorders, and general endocrinologic problems. Dr. Rickels predominantly cares for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and presently serves as Medical Director for the Pancreatic Islet Cell Transplantation program.