Research & Development

The pancreas is a large organ rich in blood vessels, and transplant procedures are complex, requiring many hours of surgery and carrying numerous potential complications. Performing a pancreas transplant in combination with a kidney transplant further increases the complexity of the procedure. Moreover, not every pancreas donated by a brain-dead individual is suitable for transplantation. Factors such as age, excess fat, and underlying health issues, including vascular disease, can render a pancreas unusable for a whole organ transplant. 

In the past, these less-than-ideal organs would have been discarded. However, we have developed a technology that allows us to process the pancreas, effectively separating the islet cells. This intricate procedure takes approximately 8 to 10 hours, yielding a collection of well-separated islet cells.

Pancreatic islet transplants offer a less invasive alternative to whole organ transplants, making them suitable for certain patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) who experience severe hypoglycaemia unawareness.

The islet cells are infused into the patient's liver, where they begin to release insulin within a couple of weeks. This process restores the natural biofeedback mechanism that enables patients to avoid low blood sugar levels and may even eliminate the need for daily insulin injections.

However, the availability of suitable pancreases from brain-dead donors is limited, and only about 40% of the time do we obtain a sufficient number of islet cells to transplant into a T1D patient. The organ must yield a minimum number of islets to justify administering immunosuppressive drugs, which are necessary to prevent the patient's immune system from rejecting the foreign cells. Unfortunately, these drugs can also increase the patient's risk of infections and cancer.

As a result, there is a significant gap between the supply of donor pancreases and demand, leaving many patients waiting for years for a transplant or facing the possibility of dying before receiving one.