HUMAN ISLET DISTRIBUTION ACTIVITY 

FOR BASIC RESEARCH: ANNUAL REPORT 2009

Tatsuya Kin, Doug O’Gorman, Adam Schroeder, Chris Onderka, Brad Richer, 

Shawn Rosichuk, Wendy Zhai, Andrew Malcolm, Peter Senior, AM James Shapiro

Clinical Islet Laboratory and Clinical Islet Transplant Program, University of Alberta and Alberta Health Services

Background: The Clinical Islet Laboratory (CIL) at the University of Alberta has maintained a threefold purpose: 1) to manufacture purified human islets for clinical transplantation; 2) to lead important studies to advance islet processing and quality assessment technology; 3) to distribute human islets for basic research when islet preparations do not meet release criteria for transplantation.  This report highlights the CIL islet distribution activity for diabetes research this past year and reviews any trends over the 3-year period.

Methods: We reviewed our islet isolation batch files and islet shipment records between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010 (Year 2009).  During this period, 78 pancreata were recovered from deceased donors and processed for islet isolation with intent to transplant.  Shipment records for Years 2007 and 2008 were reviewed as well.  Shipments of acinar enriched fraction for research were not included to this report.

Results: Of 78 pancreata, 37 islet preparations went for clinical transplantation; 29 were shipped for basic research; and 12 were not utilized due to insufficient islet yield with no research consent.  The CIL distributed 6.3 million IEQs of islets within 127 shipments to 3 investigators at the Alberta Diabetes Institute and 5 others outside of Alberta including Israel in 2009.  The number of preparations for research use was stable over the 3-year period (29/23/26 in 2009/2008/2007, respectively).  Consent for research was obtained in more than half of cases (61.5/64.1/52.5%).  Islet yield used for research per isolation was 218, 212, and 201 x10^3 IEQs, respectively.  The number of activated investigators was stable as well (8/11/8), although there were only two investigators before 2007.  In 2009 and 2008, each investigator received fewer islets per shipment (49,820/40,948/75,635 IEQs) whereas each received islets more frequently (21.5/15.5/11.2 times per year).  This paradigm shift would be desirable for investigators because most require ~30,000 IEQs per shipment and more frequent islet shipment results in a larger sample size in experimentation.  Importantly our islet distribution activity resulted in 10 scientific publications attributable to the use of human islets over the 3 year period.

Conclusion: After an initial expansion in the number of investigators requesting islets, our islet distribution activity has been stable over the years in terms of total productivity of islets for research use.  The current supply versus demand ratio in our program appears to be appropriate.  However, in the face of recent recognition that human islets differ in critical ways from non-human counterparts, the demand of human islet for basic research may be increasing in the future.

Keywords: human islet, islet isolation, islet shipment

Presented at Alberta Diabetes Institute Research Day, 2010, Edmonton