Grant: Project Grant

The discovery of insulin a century ago by a team of Canadians saved the lives of millions of people with type 1 diabetes. Today, even with innovations such as insulin pumps and continuous blood glucose monitors, insulin therapy does not fully prevent complications of the disease. Islet transplantation demonstrated that replacing the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas can lead to a durable therapy. Few patients have access to this treatment because islet supply from diseased donors is limited and because the medication needed to avoid graft rejection after the transplant leads to important side effects. This project addresses both these limitations. We previously developed a highly scalable process to encapsulate human cells in microscopic beads. Here, we will combine this method with islets produced from stem cells in vitro. The beads are expected to protect the islets both during culture in bioreactors, and after transplantation. If successful, this project could overcome one of the last barriers to the use of stem cell-derived islets to treat type 1 diabetes. The project will also advance our understanding of how the immune system interacts with stem cell-derived islet transplants. The project will be tacked by a highly interdisciplinary team. Prof. Hoesli, chemical engineer at McGill, will produce the stem cell-derived islets. Dr Paraskevas, head of the islet transplantation program at the McGill University Health Center in Québec, will transplant the encapsulated islets. Prof. Lesage, immunologist at Université de Montréal, as well as collaborator Vdovenko will study immune reactions to the transplants. Collaborator Kieffer at the University of British Columbia will share protocols to support the project.