In September, Douglas Cairns, a CWD Foundation volunteer, flew to Minnesota (see Diabetes World Flight) to present a check for $35,000 in person. Dr. Hering and his team are islet cell transplantation experts. They are using this award to supplement their xenotransplantion program.

The CWD Foundation hopes to provide an additional $50,000 this year in support of this very important research.

The Children With Diabetes Foundation recognizes the importance of finding alternative, renewable sources of islet cells for transplantation into humans. One avenue which holds promise is xenotransplantation. Porcine insulin was used to treat patients with Type 1 diabetes until just this past decade. Now investigators are studying porcine islet cells as a source of insulin producing cells.

Dr. Bernhard Hering and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota have been able to extend functional islet xenograft survival in diabetic monkeys from 0 to more than 70 days. The new immunosuppressive protocols proposed are likely to extend survival to more than 100 days, which they believe is a reasonable benchmark for considering clinical trials. Other investigators have proposed islet xenograft survival for 30 days as a benchmark for clinical trials. The funding from Children With Diabetes Foundation will assist them in testing the concept of blocking indirect antigen presentation. This pathway is believed to be the predominant pathway of immune recognition in islet xenotransplantation. Blocking this pathway is therefore expected to translate into improved islet xenograft survival, beyond what has already been achieved in their previous protocols.