The Center for Cellular Transplantation and Therapeutics will soon offer hope for those individuals who suffer from the debilitating consequences of Type 1 Diabetes. The Center will include the first pancreatic islet cell isolation facility in Virginia. This state-of-the-art facility will test new therapies that will reverse or prevent Type 1 Diabetes from developing.

The Center will serve as the central focus of an exciting and original program whose primary goal is to reverse Type 1 Diabetes and insulin dependence. The researchers will incorporate the most innovative approaches and pioneer a program that could very well change the way diabetes is treated. The highly focused approach that the Center is undertaking includes:

• Using pharmacological agents to improve the isolation and viability of islets for transplant. And to improve islet graft survival post transplant.
• Investigating methods to reduce complications of the transplant procedure, e.g., bleeding and clotting.
• Reduce the side effects of immunosuppression by using a monophosphate dehydrogenase inhibitor that inhibits the proliferative response of T- and B- lymphocytes. This should allow for immunosuppression dose reduction.
• Using cutting edge imaging techniques attempts are being made to trace the fate of islets after transplantation. This may lead to an understanding of why donor islets sometimes fail.
• Evaluation of new ways to safely prevent immune rejection of donor islet grafts. Different immune suppression regimens will be employed as well as tolerance induction strategies.

At UVa, they are using collaborative relationships and interactions between departments to build a unique program that benefits from a proven ability to establish and unify multidisciplinary programs of excellence. UVa gives them a breadth and depth of expertise not available to many researchers. In particular, the Center for Cellular Transplantation and Therapeutics will draw upon the expertise of faculty in the Divisions of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Surgery, and Transplantation, the Departments of Chemistry, Pharmacology, the General Clinical Research Center, and the Diabetes Center.