Leiden Islet Isolation Chamber • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250116 • TakeNode 398303fe-928a-4c53-839e-9dde0e7d8ec6
Following a working visit February ’92 studying pig islet isolation at the ‘Fondation Transplantation’ in Strasbourg -Hautepierre, France (1) , I designed this islet isolation chamber March 1992 for use in our Leiden Islet Laboratory , together with Gerard Verschagen , head of the precision mechanics workshop of the Laboratory of Physiology of the University Hospital Leiden (AZL , now LUMC), who manufactured this and other of our islet isolation devices.
The chamber was designed with support for use together with the Retsch Vibro Sieving Machine , purchased earlier for our Leiden Islet Laboratory, a vibrating sieving machine I had used in the 70s for isolation cell nuclei (2). The design was based on the Ricordi chamber published 4 years earlier (3).
The drawing was originally designed and produced on a Macintosh computer March 1992, using the MacDraw II application. That Mac file was remastered today in LibreOffice Vanilla, by straightening most of the lines that are slanted after opening in LibreOffice and correcting the font changes. So , not accurate now probably … just for illustration the history of progress in our Leiden Islet Laboratory, and love for art ;)
Notes
1) Xeno Islets • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250113 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/13/
2) Mennes AM, Bouman H, Van der Burg MPM, Libbenga KR. RNA synthesis in isolated tobacco callus nuclei, and the influence of phytohormones. Plant Sci Lett 1978; 13: 329– 339, ISSN 0304-4211, https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4211(78)90210-9.
3) Piemonti L, Pileggi A. 25 Years Of The Ricordi Automated Method For Islet Isolation. CellR4 Repair Replace Regen Reprogram. 2013;1(1):e128. PMID: 30505878; PMCID: PMC6267808. URL https://www.cellr4.org/article/128
Citation info : Leiden Islet Isolation Chamber • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250116 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/16/
Front Page • 20250115_1 • Miracles.Media • Link to full text paper PMID_1465965 🔗
Yesterday, Jan 14th 2025, I posted a video of the slideshow and audio track of my talk on the innovative Percoll-UWS density gradient for the purification of canine and human pancreatic islets, at the 5th Congres European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991 (1,2).
That paper was presented the next year , in a poster discussion I co-chaired at the 1st International Congress of the Cell Transplant Society in Pittsburgh (USA) May 31–June 3, 1992 (3,4). The conference proceedings paper of that meeting has been published in Transplantation Proceedings in 1992 (5).
The dutch publisher Elsevier, is publishing Transplantation Proceedings from 1997, and provides (restricted) access to full text online.
Science in print is out of date ?
Previous editions (before 1997) of the journal Transplantation Proceedings , were published by Appleton & Lange, like this 1992 paper (5), and full text is not found online. Also, I am afraid, many libraries have thrown away their stocks of print editions. I, myself, have not kept the bulky Transplantation Proceedings volumes I once bought … thrown away for lack of space , and what I kept is not within reach in practice, piled up in the attic, like the many hundreds of scientific slides…
A pdf copy of that 1992 paper is now available below (5) ;) And copies will be added in upcoming updates of those previous posts.
Notes
1) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Prins FA, Scherft JP, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Percoll in UW: efficient iso-osmotic canine and human islet purification. 5th Congres European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991.
2) Percoll UWS Purification Pancreatic Islets • ESOT 1991 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/10/14/
3) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Scherft JP, Bruijn JA, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Islet preservation during isolation: a new concept in cell transplantation. First International Congress of the Cell Transplant Society, Pittsburgh (USA) May 31 – June 3, 1992.
5) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Frölich M, Bruijn JA, Gooszen HG. Islet preservation during isolation: a new concept in cell transplantation. Transplant Proc. 1992 Dec;24(6):2840-1. PMID: 1465965.
Percoll UWS Purification Pancreatic Islets • ESOT 1991 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114 • TakeNode 459d71fd-069f-4f6d-9c8f-924ebf132222
Two years, after we introduced the UW-Solution ( UWS ) as the islet isolation solution at the 4th ESOT meeting (1,2) , this talk on the innovative Percoll-UWS density gradient for the purification of canine and human pancreatic islets, was presented at the 5th ESOT — Wednesday Oct 9 , 1991, at 2 PM at the 5th ESOT meeting in Maastricht, Netherlands (3) .
That 5th ESOT meeting was recorded on tape by Audio Archives Int. I purchased some tapes, including the tape of that afternoon session that had started with my talk — and found that the taping of this session had started a few minutes too late … during my talk, the moment I started presenting the Results.
That original tape is now included in this remastered slideshow of my talk presented in this video (20250114) here , starting at 2 min 51 sec. Audio of the first part of my speech , missing in the original 5th ESOT tape, I have recorded this week (from the handout of the speech, written out at full lenght) and added as a voice over at the start of this remastered slideshow.
Cassette Tapes , Audio Archives Int, 5th ESOT • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114_2 • TakeNode 97730a39-b3db-4f56-a08a-77c4d0406be0
Background
In November 1989, I had my first chance for a presentation at a major international conference, the 4th ESOT meeting in Barcelona, of a paper centered on the rationale for employing the University of Wisconsin (UW) organ preservation solution in pancreatic islet isolation.
We demonstrated in 1989, that the use of the UW-Solution ( UWS ) for isolation of canine pancreatic islets prior to ‘conventional’ dextran gradient purification, consistently results in a greatly improved purification outcome, of >90% purified islets, and successful transplantation of the canine islets.
Thus , the UWS was used as the isolation solution both before , and after the purification of islets — but not yet during the purification step, during centrifugation of the pancreatic tissue in a density gradient.
A conventional (Hanks’ balanced salts) solution was still being used for preparing density gradients with dextran in our laboratory.
Following our islet transplants series June-August 1989 , next a working visit in Minneapolis Sep-Oct ’89, and presentations at the Nov ’89 ESOT congress in Barcelona , we had started a new series of islet isolation experiments from December 1989.
During the first two isolations, Dec 1989, of this new series, I wondered whether the dextran gradient could be optimized , for example by layering the islet suspension in UWS (the pancreatic digest suspension) on top of the dextran bottom layer, or perhaps layering the digest on top of a bottom layer of dextran dissolved in UWS…
The new , much shorter, Labcraft density hydrometers, I had purchased during the Minneapolis visit Nov. 1989 , would greatly facilitate designing new density gradients.
The same lot of dextran (Sigma’s industrial-grade dextran) had been used for all these studies. That stock ran out, so a switch was made Jan 2, 1990 to using a new batch of that dextran powder, resulting however in a significantly impaired recovery of islets during purification (4).
Thus, designing a new density gradient became urgent January 1990.
Dextran-UWS Gradient • First density gradient in UW-Solution
March 1990 , new density gradient research was started during islet isolation , splitting the suspension of digested pancreatic tissue (‘digest’) for comparison of different density gradients, of either Sigma’s dextran, and Pharmacia’s essentially pure dextran T70 product in Hanks’ solution … and also the first ‘UW gradient’ tested : a dextran gradient in UW-Solution (4).
Percoll-UWS • Successful density gradient in UW-Solution
From April 1990, dextran T70 was used also in dextran-UW gradients, and islet purification research was further extended that month, by designing a density gradient of Percoll in UW Solution, and from May 1990, designing a Pentastarch-UW gradient. Posters on these new density gradients in UWS were presented June 1991 at the 3rd IPITA Congress in Lyon, France (4,5,6).
The paper presented in this 5th ESOT talk, was presented the next year (1992) again in full detail in a poster at the 1st meeting of the Cell Transplant Society in Pittsburgh , and a remastered edition was posted online recently (7).
Proceedings paper below (8).
Slides originally created on a Macintosh computer October 1991, using the MacDraw II application, with graphs from Cricket Graph. Those 1991 files were remastered this month using LibreOffice, as well as the likewise produced Pittsburgh poster for this video of the 5th ESOT talk. Handout speech and report files originally created in the Mac Desk Accessory ‘Acta’, currently accessed by Opal.
Notes
1) Pancreatic Islet Isolation With UW Solution • A New Concept • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20241224 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/24/
2) Pancreatic Islet Isolation in UW Solution & Transplantation • ESOT 1989 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20241229 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/29/
3) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Prins FA, Scherft JP, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Percoll in UW: efficient iso-osmotic canine and human islet purification. 5th Congres European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991.
4) Dextran UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250104 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/04/
5) Percoll UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • 20240731 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
6) PentaStarch UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • 20240802 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
7) Pittsburgh 1992 Cell Transplant Society • 20240812 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
8) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Frölich M, Bruijn JA, Gooszen HG. Islet preservation during isolation: a new concept in cell transplantation. Transplant Proc. 1992 Dec;24(6):2840-1. PMID: 1465965. PDF available below PMID_1465965 🔗
End Card
5th Congres European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 9, 1991 14:00
0:07 Photo taken at 4th ESOT in Barcelona, 1989 (two years earlier)
0:06-2:51 Voice Over Michel van der Burg • Recorded Jan 11th, 2025 • Substitute for audio missing in original tape recording
2:51 Start Original Audio Tape 5th ESOT session by Audio Archives Int
6:52 Start Discussion • Chair : Reinout van Schilfgaarde (Groningen, Netherlands) • With contributions by Bernhard Hering (Giessen, Germany), R. Seelis (Edmonton, Canada), Derek Gray (Oxford, UK), and Reinout van Schilfgaarde (Groningen, Netherlands).
Citation info : Percoll UWS Purification Pancreatic Islets • ESOT 1991 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/14/
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/
No Title • Oil- Acrylic painting by Hans Dudart • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250112_1 • TakeNode cbd20789-ebf5-4ede-925b-9b861c6719a4
Scan of print (10×15 cm; photo G.J. v.d. Poort) of oil- acrylic painting (60x50cm) by Hans Dudart.
Hans Dudart (1955-2003) worked as an artist in Holland, and as a valued co-worker in our Experimental Surgical Laboratory of the Leiden University Hospital (AZL, now LUMC) in Leiden, Holland. He died too soon from type 1 diabetes.
Citation info : No Title • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250112 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/12/
Islet Transplant Performance 5th ESOT 1991 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250109_1 • TakeNode 75edbb4e-4360-43b8-8783-363ffd34c0ef
Poster (1) presented at the 5th Congress European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991. The poster was originally created on a Macintosh computer Oct 6, 1991, using the MacDraw II application, with graphs from Cricket Graph. That 1991 poster was remastered today in LibreOffice.
We presented 2 posters at the 5th ESOT, this poster (1), and another one on the effects of denervation with pancreas transplantation (2).
Two years after the 4th ESOT (in Barcelona, Nov 1989) where we introduced the UW-Solution as an islet isolation solution before density gradient purification, we now had a talk at this 5th ESOT on the use of the UW-Solution as the islet isolation solution, both before purification, and also during the purification in an innovative density gradient (3) — the foundation for current clinical purification methods. The talk was recorded on tape (except for the intro), and will be posted here soon too.
Notes
1) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Ebert R, Jansen JBMJ, Creutzfeld W, Lamers CBHW, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Postprandial performance after canine islet transplantation: the importance of gut factors. 5th Congress European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991.
2) Guicherit OR, Van der Burg MPM, Lemkes HHPJ, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Pancreatic denervation causes reduced insulin sensitivity. 5 th Congress European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) Oct 7–10 1991.
3) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Prins FA, Scherft JP, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Percoll in UW: efficient iso-osmotic canine and human islet purification. 5th Congress European Society for Organ Transplantation, Maastricht (The Netherlands) October 7–10, 1991.
Citation info : Islet Transplant Performance 5th ESOT 1991 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250109 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/09/
