Stanford pancreatic Islet Transplantation and immune tolerance initiative (SPIRIT)

A multidisciplinary team of physicians, scientists, and administrators have developed this proposal to launch the Stanford Pancreatic Islet and Immune Tolerance Initiative (SPIRIT). 

Goals: 

  • Establish a pancreatic islet intervention and regeneration program at Stanford

  • Become a referral center for pancreatic islet intervention/regeneration on the West coast

  • Create an islet isolation core for harvesting of human islets for both clinical transplantation and basic science research

  • Become a member of Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry (CITR)

  • Integrate islet cell transplantation to the Stanford Tolerance Induction Program

  • Launch the SPIRIT1 combined islet and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation clinical trial that could provide a new paradigm for islet cell transplantation and regenerative medicine.

There are 1.4 million people in the U.S. who live with type 1 diabetes and Stanford's leading efforts in immune tolerance and islet regeneration could be applied to islet cell transplantation to dramatically improve outcomes and possibly contribute to a cure. 

Team:

Drs. Everett Meyer, Avnesh Thakor, Stephan Busque, Walter Park, Marina Basina, Seung Kim, David Maahs, and Bruce Buckingham