Tag: clinical

Clinical Islet Transplantation 13th AIDSPIT • @1MEMO 20251113


Seminar on lessons from clinical islet transplantation

Chairman K. Federlin (Giessen, Germany) opened the seminar Tuesday, January 25, 1994 and David Scharp began with his lesson from the Center in St. Louis (USA) at the 13th Workshop of the AIDSPIT * Study Group , Igls, Austria, January 23–25, 1994.

Notes


Video image: Iodixanol-UWS purified human islets, stained with dithizone (March 18, 1999) • Michel van der Burg , Leiden Islet Laboratory LUMC .

Second, remastered, edition created from the 1st video edition published 20170208 via Vimeo at 1-memo.com .

* AIDSPIT later known as AIDPIT.

Recorded with Olympus mini-tape dictaphone, and re-recorded from the speaker of the dictaphone.

My presentations at the event

Cell preservation in University of Wisconsin solution during isolation of canine islets of Langerhans. Van der Burg M.P.M., Guicherit O.R., Frölich M., Gooszen H.G. (Leiden, The Netherlands) . Horm metab Res 1994; 26: 63. (Abstract). File 1MEMO_20251113_2

Metabolic control after canine islet transplantation. Van der Burg M.P.M., Guicherit O.R., van Suylichem P.T.R., Frölich M., van Deijnen J.H.M. , Gooszen H.G. (Leiden, The Netherlands; Groningen, The Netherlands). Horm metab Res 1994; 26: 63. (Abstract). File 1MEMO_20251113_2

View/Download file 1MEMO_20251113_2

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Citation info : Clinical Islet Transplantation 13th AIDSPIT • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20251113 • TakeNode 24209f1e-67d5-4540-9115-89efcc6090c9 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2025/11/13/clinical-islet-transplantation-13th-aidspit-1memo-20251113/

Iodixanol-UWS Human Islet Purification 1998 Abstract • @1MEMO 20251102

Front page Acta Diabetologica • Download Abstract Below

Abstract published in Acta Diabetologica 1998 of Iodixanol-UWS Human Islet Purification in 1998 at the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami. Abstracts book of the 18th Workshop of the AIDSPIT Study Group in Igls, Austria, Jan 1999.

Van der Burg MPM, Ranuncoli A, Molano R, Kirlew T, Ringers J, Bouwman E, Ricordi C. Efficacy of the novel iodixanol-UWS density gradient for human islet purification (Abstract). Acta Diabetol 1998; 35: 247.
View / Download abstract (file 1MEMO_20251102_1.pdf) below .

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Notes

Abstract added in full post :
Efficacy of the novel iodixanol-UWS density gradient for human islet purification • Igls Aidspit 1999 • 20241202 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/02 •

Citation info : Iodixanol-UWS Human Islet Purification 1998 Abstract • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20251102 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/11/02/

Islet Transplantation LUMC News Surprise • @1MEMO 20251020

Diabetic (dutch ‘Suikerzieke) … Parool, 6 Jan 1990 • @1MEMO 20251020

Big surprise today , to encounter this nice news article by journalist Rob van Dijk reporting on our pancreatic islet transplantation breakthrough in the Leiden University Hospital (now LUMC) in the Amsterdam based Dutch national newspaper Parool , Saturday 6 January 1990 (1).

I was searching actually for a better copy of a different news article I have archived on my clinical islet transplantation work (Newspaper Volkskrant 10 April 1999) in the Delpher archive of the National Library of the Netherlands , scrolling the search results, and noticed this Parool article – I didn’t know it existed ;)

Journalist Rob van Dijk did not interview me for the Parool, so I assume his source was the interview I gave for publication in Cicero, the biweekly LUMC publication, and the Dutch newspaper ‘Leidsch Dagblad’, and posted a year ago (2).

The articles reports (my translation from dutch*) :

Transplantation

Islet transplantation has been possible for a few years now, but it doesn’t (yet?) work in humans. The technique itself isn’t that complicated: as many islets of Langerhans as possible are extracted from a pancreas, injected into the diabetic patient’s liver or spleen, and thus, start producing insulin. However, that “thus” is still a bit tricky… …
The major problems lie in the fact that the yield of properly functioning islets is too small (at least 30 percent of the islets must be obtained undamaged to achieve sufficient insulin production after a transplant) and that the suspensions are too impure. Nevertheless, progress is being made.
The best news comes from Leiden University Hospital. There, biologist M. van der Burg, MSc has developed a method to isolate a very high and pure yield of islets from a dog’s pancreas. Van der Burg succeeded in isolating 40 percent of the vital islets from a dog’s pancreas. Through special processing, he was able to completely purify these cell clumps of 90 percent of excess and complicating pancreatic tissue. These islets were injected into the spleen of the same dog, where they produced sufficient insulin. This initial experiment has since been repeated in Leiden with several dogs with the same success. However, major challenges remain, not the least of which is the rejection problem. The Leiden experiments used the dog’s own tissue. The big question remains how the human immune system reacts when islets from a donor are injected.

*NL (dutch) quote :

Transplantatie

Sinds een paar jaar is eilandjestransplantatie wel mogelijk, alleen, bij de mens werkt het (nog?) niet. De techniek is op zichzelf niet zo ingewikkeld: men haalt zoveel mogelijk eilandjes van Langerhans uit een pancreas, spuit die bij de suikerzieke in lever of milt in en dan gaan ze dus insuline maken. Met dat ‘dus’ ligt het echter nog moeilijk… …
De grote problemen schuilen hem erin dat de oogst aan goed werkende eilandjes te gering is (men moet ten minste 30 procent van de eilandjes onbeschadigd te pakken krijgen om na een transplantatie voldoende insulineproduktie te verkrijgen) en dat de suspensies te onzuiver zijn. Toch zit er schot in.
Het beste nieuws komt uit het academisch ziekenhuis te Leiden. Daar heeft de bioloog drs. M. van der Burg een methode ontwikkeld om uit een hondepancreas een zeer hoge en zuivere oogst aan eilandjes te isoleren. Van der Burg slaagde erin uit de alvleesklier van een hond 40 procent van de vitale eilandjes te isoleren, door een speciale bewerking kon hij deze celklompjes voor 90 procent absoluut zuiveren van overbodig en complicerend pancreasweefsel. Deze eilandjes werden ingespoten in de milt van dezelfde hond en produceren daar voldoende insuline. Dit eerste experiment is in Leiden intussen met meerdere honden met hetzelfde succes herhaald. Maar er zijn nog grote problemen op te lossen en bepaald niet het geringste daarvan is dat van de afstoting. Bij de Leidse experimenten werd gebruik gemaakt van eigen weefsel van de hond. De grote vraag blijft hoe het immuunsysteem van de mens reageert als er eilandjes van een donor worden ingespoten.

Notes

1) Transplantatie. “Het Parool”. Amsterdam, 06-01-1990. Retrieved in Delpher on 20-10-2025, https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ABCDDD:010834140:mpeg21:p017

2) Islet Transplantation Breakthrough in Leiden University Hospital • 20240830 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/08/30/islet-transplantation-breakthrough-in-leiden-university-hospital-20240830/

Citation info : Islet Transplantation LUMC News Surprise • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20251020 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/10/20/

Islet Transplantation LUMC News Surprise • @1MEMO 20251020

Diabetic (dutch ‘Suikerzieke) … Parool, 6 Jan 1990 • @1MEMO 20251020

Big surprise today , to encounter this nice news article by journalist Rob van Dijk reporting on our pancreatic islet transplantation breakthrough in the Leiden University Hospital (now LUMC) in the Amsterdam based Dutch national newspaper Parool , Saturday 6 January 1990 (1).

I was searching actually for a better copy of a different news article I have archived on my clinical islet transplantation work (Newspaper Volkskrant 10 April 1999) in the Delpher archive of the National Library of the Netherlands , scrolling the search results, and noticed this Parool article – I didn’t know it existed ;)

Journalist Rob van Dijk did not interview me for the Parool, so I assume his source was the interview I gave for publication in Cicero, the biweekly LUMC publication, and the Dutch newspaper ‘Leidsch Dagblad’, and posted a year ago (2).

The articles reports (my translation from dutch*) :

Transplantation

Islet transplantation has been possible for a few years now, but it doesn’t (yet?) work in humans. The technique itself isn’t that complicated: as many islets of Langerhans as possible are extracted from a pancreas, injected into the diabetic patient’s liver or spleen, and thus, start producing insulin. However, that “thus” is still a bit tricky… …
The major problems lie in the fact that the yield of properly functioning islets is too small (at least 30 percent of the islets must be obtained undamaged to achieve sufficient insulin production after a transplant) and that the suspensions are too impure. Nevertheless, progress is being made.
The best news comes from Leiden University Hospital. There, biologist M. van der Burg, MSc has developed a method to isolate a very high and pure yield of islets from a dog’s pancreas. Van der Burg succeeded in isolating 40 percent of the vital islets from a dog’s pancreas. Through special processing, he was able to completely purify these cell clumps of 90 percent of excess and complicating pancreatic tissue. These islets were injected into the spleen of the same dog, where they produced sufficient insulin. This initial experiment has since been repeated in Leiden with several dogs with the same success. However, major challenges remain, not the least of which is the rejection problem. The Leiden experiments used the dog’s own tissue. The big question remains how the human immune system reacts when islets from a donor are injected.

*NL (dutch) quote :

Transplantatie

Sinds een paar jaar is eilandjestransplantatie wel mogelijk, alleen, bij de mens werkt het (nog?) niet. De techniek is op zichzelf niet zo ingewikkeld: men haalt zoveel mogelijk eilandjes van Langerhans uit een pancreas, spuit die bij de suikerzieke in lever of milt in en dan gaan ze dus insuline maken. Met dat ‘dus’ ligt het echter nog moeilijk… …
De grote problemen schuilen hem erin dat de oogst aan goed werkende eilandjes te gering is (men moet ten minste 30 procent van de eilandjes onbeschadigd te pakken krijgen om na een transplantatie voldoende insulineproduktie te verkrijgen) en dat de suspensies te onzuiver zijn. Toch zit er schot in.
Het beste nieuws komt uit het academisch ziekenhuis te Leiden. Daar heeft de bioloog drs. M. van der Burg een methode ontwikkeld om uit een hondepancreas een zeer hoge en zuivere oogst aan eilandjes te isoleren. Van der Burg slaagde erin uit de alvleesklier van een hond 40 procent van de vitale eilandjes te isoleren, door een speciale bewerking kon hij deze celklompjes voor 90 procent absoluut zuiveren van overbodig en complicerend pancreasweefsel. Deze eilandjes werden ingespoten in de milt van dezelfde hond en produceren daar voldoende insuline. Dit eerste experiment is in Leiden intussen met meerdere honden met hetzelfde succes herhaald. Maar er zijn nog grote problemen op te lossen en bepaald niet het geringste daarvan is dat van de afstoting. Bij de Leidse experimenten werd gebruik gemaakt van eigen weefsel van de hond. De grote vraag blijft hoe het immuunsysteem van de mens reageert als er eilandjes van een donor worden ingespoten.

Notes

1) Transplantatie. “Het Parool”. Amsterdam, 06-01-1990. Retrieved in Delpher on 20-10-2025, https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ABCDDD:010834140:mpeg21:p017

2) Islet Transplantation Breakthrough in Leiden University Hospital • 20240830 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/08/30/islet-transplantation-breakthrough-in-leiden-university-hospital-20240830/

Citation info : Islet Transplantation LUMC News Surprise • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20251020 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/10/20/

Human Islet Isolation • DRI Miami 1998 • @1MEMO 20250204

Summer 1997, Onno Terpstra, the head of our Surgery Department, asked me to explore our options for starting clinical islet isolation and transplantation in our center – the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), and prepare a roadmap.

September 1997, at the IPITA congress in Milan (1) , I learned from Camillo Ricordi, the scientific director of the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) in Miami – where many guest collaborators work – that visiting the DRI some weeks might be a good option to gain sufficient first work experience in his clinical islet transplantation group.

December 1997, with a ‘Roadmap’, I got the green light to start the operationalization of clinical islet transplantation in the LUMC, first with a working visit to Miami to study the state of the art ‘Ricordi’ method of human islet isolation, and then start the human islet isolation work in our Surgery lab in Leiden.

In 1990 I had already gained some initial research experience in our Leiden Islet Laboratory with a small number of isolations of islets from human donor organs, using our innovative method of density gradient purification based on the UW solution (2).

During the first three months of 1998 I worked intensively with my student colleague Josephine Rijkelijkhuizen so that she would be able to continue our xenotransplantation research project as independently as possible in our Surgery research team.

April 1998, after participating in the 1st Workshop on Clinical Islet Transplantation in New Orleans (3) – the ideal introduction – a fruitful working visit to the DRI in Miami followed (4,5), with intensive collaboration with the DRI team on, among other things, six human islet isolations, and also the simultaneously (parallel) conducted research into the purification of the human islets in our Iodixanol gradient in UW-Solution (6).

Here a slideshow illustrating this team up with the DRI team in Miami , working on human islet isolation and purification in the innovative Iodixanol-UWS gradient, April-May 1998.

Notes

1) Innovative Islet Purification in Iodixanol-UWS • IPITA 97 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250128 • TakeNode • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/28/

2) Percoll UWS Purification Pancreatic Islets • ESOT 1991 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/14/

3) Invited participant 1st Workshop on Clinical Islet Transplantation, New Orleans (LA, USA) April 17–19, 1998

4) Working visit April – May 1998 at the “fast track” center of the Diabetes Research Institute (Scientific director Prof. C. Ricordi, MD) of the University of Miami (Miami, FL, USA)

5) DRI Dream Team • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250105 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/05/

6) Human Islet Purification Miami 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • 20181102 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2018/11/02/

Citation info : Human Islet Isolation • DRI Miami 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250204 • TakeNode 86e4a319-a769-44d5-8fa5-de2ca90ab63c • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/02/04/

Optiprep For Human Islet Purification • Cell Transplant Society 1999 • @1MEMO 20250203

Optiprep For Human Islet Purification • Cell Transplant Society 1999 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250203 • TakeNode bad757b8-674c-4371-938c-ac73287bc457

Poster (#57) presentation Michel van der Burg, Cell Transplant Society congress 1999 in Montreux, Switzerland (1,2)

Outcome of the first series of human islet purifications with the novel Iodixanol -UWS density gradient — developed in the Leiden Islet Laboratory of the LUMC — performed during my working visit April – May 1998 at the “fast track” center of the Diabetes Research Institute (Scientific director Prof. C. Ricordi, MD) of the University of Miami (Miami, FL, USA).

Notes

1) Van der Burg MPM, Ranuncoli A, Molano R, Kirlew T, Ringers J, Bouwman E, Terpstra OT, Ricordi C. Optiprep for human islet purification. 4th International congress of the Cell Transplant Society, Montreux (Switzerland) March 21–24, 1999 .

2) Van der Burg MPM, Ranuncoli A, Molano R, Kirlew T, Ringers J, Bouwman E, Terpstra OT, Ricordi C. Optiprep for human islet purification (Abstract). Cell Transplant 1999; 8: 184. Download abstract below 1MEMO_20250202_3🔗
https://michelvanderburg.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/1memo_20250202_3.pdf

Citation info : Optiprep For Human Islet Purification • Cell Transplant Society 1999 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250203 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/02/03/

Iodixanol-UWS Purification for Porcine Islet Transplantation • AIDSPIT 1998 • @1MEMO 20250131

Iodixanol-UWS Purification for Porcine Islet Transplantation • AIDSPIT 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250131

Slideshow (digitally remastered) of first talk on pancreatic islet xeno-transplantation following adult pig islet purification in our novel Iodixanol-UWS density gradient. Presented at the 17th Workshop of the AIDSPIT Study Group in Igls, Austria, Tuesday, Jan 27, 1998 (1, 2).

Isolation of porcine pancreatic islets (from the pancreas of large sows) was markedly improved by keeping the islets in the UW donor organ preservation solution (UWS) both during the isolation of islets (using the Liberase enzyme blend) and purification of the islets using a novel Iodixanol-UWS density gradient.
Transplantation of the pig islets (after 1 day storage in culture solution) restored normal blood sugar levels in diabetic mice.


20250131 1

Notes

1) Van der Burg MPM, Zwaan RP, Bouwman E. Markedly improved outcome of adult porcine islet isolation, purification, and culture using Liberase-PI versus collagenase-P, and a novel gradient of Optiprep in University of Wisconsin solution. 17th Workshop of the Study Group on Artificial Insulin Delivery Systems, Pancreas and Islet Transplantation (AIDSPIT) of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Igls (Austria) January 25—27,1998

2) Van der Burg MPM, Zwaan RP, Bouwman E. Markedly improved outcome of adult porcine islet isolation, purification, and culture using Liberase-PI versus collagenase-P, and a novel gradient of Optiprep in University of Wisconsin solution (Abstract). Horm Metab Res 1998; 30(1): A23 . DOI: 10.1055/s-2007-978834 .
Download abstract 1MEMO_20250131_2 below :

1MEMO_20250131_2🔗Download

Citation info : Iodixanol-UWS Purification for Porcine Islet Transplantation • AIDSPIT 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250131 • TakeNode 1f185515-7aeb-44ac-b721-2cec76df67b7 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/31/