Bernhard Hering, MD

Professor and Vice Chair of Translational Medicine

Executive Director, Schulze Diabetes Institute

McKnight Presidential Chair in Transplantation Science

Jeffrey Dobbs and David Sutherland, MD, PhD Chair in Diabetes Research

Research Vision:

The primary objective of our translational research program is to make transplantation without immunosuppression routine and commonplace through the induction of immune tolerance.

Our program was the first to achieve lasting tolerance of pancreatic islet cell allografts in the stringent preclinical transplant model in nonhuman primates. We are currently extending these findings (kidney transplantation, cell and organ xenotransplantation, immune mechanisms using CyTOF phenotyping and ATAC- and RNA sequencing of single cells, etc.), with a view toward clinical trials of tolerance of islet transplants in recipients with type 1 diabetes and kidney transplants in patients with end-stage kidney disease.

Research Areas:

  • Clinical translation of tolerance to islet and kidney transplantation.

  • Immune mechanisms of transplant tolerance in nonhuman primates.

  • Prolonging tolerance of cell and organ xenografts in nonhuman primates.

Research Publications:

1. Singh A, Ramachandran S, Graham ML, Daneshmandi S … Miller SD. Luo X, Hering BJ. Long-term tolerance of islet allografts in nonhuman primates induced by apoptotic donor leukocytes. Nature Communications 2019; 10: 3495.

2. Knechtle SJ, Shaw JM, Hering BJ, Kraemer K, Madsen JC. Translational impact of NIH-funded nonhuman primate research in transplantation. Science Translational Medicine 2019; 11 (500):eaau0143.

3. Hering BJ, Kandaswamy R, Ansite JD, Eckman PM, Nakano M, Sawada T, Matsumoto I, Ihm SH, Zhang HJ, Hunter DW, Sutherland DER. Single-donor, marginal-dose islet transplantation in patients with type 1 diabetes. JAMA 2005; 293: 830-835.

4. Hering BJ, Clarke WR, Bridges ND, Eggerman TL, et al. Phase 3 trial of transplantation of human islets in type 1 diabetes complicated by severe hypoglycemia. Diabetes Care 2016; 39:1230-40.

5. Hering BJ, Wijkstrom M, Graham ML ,... Sutherland DER, Bansal-Pakala P, Murtaugh MP, Kirchhof N and Schuurman HJ: Prolonged diabetes reversal after intraportal xenotransplantation of wild-type porcine islets in immunosuppressed nonhuman primates. Nature Medicine 2006; 12 (3): 301-303.