From Buchenwald to Hollywood, The Robert Clary Story : The Documentary (Extended Version) • 20250419 • A film by Karen and Richard Bloom and Michel van der Burg
Today 80 years ago , April 19, 1945 – the Buchenwald band ‘Rhythmus’ – with Jiří Žák & Robert Clary – gave a jazz concert in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald for their comrades and US soldiers that liberated the camp .
We , today, present the extended version of our Robert Clary documentary, now featuring also Robert Clary’s desire that Jiří Žák be nominated as a Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem…
Purification Islets in Iodixanol-UWS • Leiden Start 1996 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250126_1 • TakeNode c2a26daf-2c4f-4051-931d-16babc872c82
August 1995, I started designing the clinical promising islet purification solution of Iodixanal in UW-Solution (UWS). I mixed Optiprep – a 60 % solution of iodixanol in water – with a 2-times concentrated UWS, to prepare this density gradient solution. The first standard operation procedure of this Iodixanol-UWS gradient for our pig islet isolation research was completed November 1995.
This purification solution was a logical follow-up of our highly succesful Percoll-UWS density gradient — a similar solution of impermeants (that do not readily enter cells) with similar osmolarity (close to that of the tissue) , more practical though, and with the important advantage that iodixanol is clinical tested. The Leiden Islet Lab had just moved into the Surgery Lab of the new LUMC building, and the islet team had grown, focussing on xenotransplantation. With more people isolating pig islets, more convenient solutions were tried.
Both Percoll-UWS and and the more convenient Histopaque-UWS were being used from 1992 for small scale islet isolations from juvenile pig pancreases.
July 1996, I introduced the Optiprep-UWS gradient to replace our Percoll-UWS gradient for larger scale porcine islet isolations , in comparison with the Histopaque gradient.
This work was first presented September 1997, both in this poster presented at the Xenotransplantation Congress in Nantes (France) and later that month also in a talk at the 6th Congress of the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association (IPITA) in Milan (Italy) — presentations that will be online at this site soon.
Notes
Van der Burg MPM, Basir I, Bouwman E. Non-traumatic porcine islet density gradient purification in a novel iodixanol in University of Wisconsin solution. The 4th Int. Congress for Xenotransplantation, Nantes (France) Sept. 7–11, 1997.
Update 20250128 – update intro design timeline
Citation info : Purification Islets in Iodixanol-UWS • Leiden Start 1996 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250126 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/26/
Pig Islet Isolation, Fondation Transplantation, Strasbourg 1992 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250113_1 • TakeNode b1f66781-cf63-4e64-a7b3-24cbdf5c107f
For the xenotransplantation research we started in 1991 at our Leiden Surgery Department, I studied pig islet isolation during a working visit February 1992, at the ‘Fondation Transplantation’ in Strasbourg-Hautepierre, France — here watching our student Vincent Nieuwenhuijs (left) at work in the international team – with Agnaldo Soares I guess – using the Ricordi method for islet isolation — and presented the recent Leiden islet work (1).
Notes
1) Van der Burg MPM, Gooszen HG. Islet preservation using UW, and islet function after autotransplantation in dogs. Fondation Transplantation, CHU HautePierre Strasbourg (France) February 18, 1992.
Update 20250124 – Paper reference
Citation info : Xeno Islets • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250113 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/13/
DRI Dream Team • Miami 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • 20250105_1 • TakeNode e6258505-55a8-4365-bb70-7a1dcd7b5426
Team up with researchers at the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami , working on human islet transplantation (1).
“For National Geographic” announced Camillo Ricordi for fun, that Monday , April 27th in 1998 at the Diabetes Research Institute, when the DRI islet isolation team posed in GMP outfit for this picture (2) — with Elina Linetsky on the left , and me standing second from right — taken after finishing our human islet isolation work, including islet purification in the iodixanol gradient in UW-Solution (3).
Notes
1) 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)
2) Blown up image (from small GIF online in the early DRInet days), taken through a reflecting window.
3) Human Islet Purification Miami 1998 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • 20181102 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2018/11/02/
Citation info : DRI Dream Team • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250105 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/05/
