Music : Someday, Maybe by Maya Belsitzman & Matan Ephrat | Artlist
Citation info : Diabetes Discoveries Display • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250117 • TakeNode 00ff4392-ea87-40fb-90a2-ada2cbb77efb • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/17/
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.
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.
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.
4) Pittsburgh 1992 Cell Transplant Society • 20240812 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/08/12/pittsburgh-1992-cell-transplant-society-20240812/
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.
SCAN PDF FILE available below
Citation info : Science in print is out of date ? • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250115 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/15/
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.
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/
Poster (remastered edition, 2025) presented at the 3rd IPITA Congress, June 1991, in Lyon, France (1). One of three posters presented at this congress on purification during the isolation of pancreatic islets (1,2,3,4).
Purification during the isolation of pancreatic islets was greatly improved in 1989 by replacing the conventional islet isolation solutions with the UW organ preservation solution.
The UW-Solution 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 used for preparing density gradients with dextran, the Minneapolis method introduced in 1988 in our laboratory (5).
We had demonstrated previously, that the use of the UW organ preservation solution for isolation of canine pancreatic islets prior to dextran gradient purification, consistently results in >90% purified islets. Further 4 out of 5 islet transplants purified using this gradient had been successful.
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 UW-Solution (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 UW-Solution…
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 , as shown in the poster shown here.
Thus, designing a new density gradient became urgent January 1990.
March 6, 1990 , new density gradient research was started during islet isolation , splitting the suspension of digested pancreatic tissue (‘digest’) for comparison of either dextran of Ficoll (a similar product) in Hanks’ solution , and also a dextran gradient in UW-Solution – the first ‘UW gradient’…
Later that month, purification research was started with a different, essentially pure, dextran product : ‘dextran T70′ from Pharmacia, in Hanks’ solution — with results reported in the poster here.
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 (3), and from May 1990, designing a Pentastarch-UW gradient (4).
1) Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Scherft JP, Frölich M, Gooszen HG. Sigma’s industrial grade dextran is not suitable for islet isolation. 3rd International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, Symposium on Artificial Insulin Delivery System, Lyon (France) June 6–8, 1991.
2) Dextran UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • 20250104 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
3) Percoll UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • 20240731 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
4) PentaStarch UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • 20240802 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
5) Pancreas & Islet Transplantation Program • 20240912 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com
Citation info : Dextran UWS Pancreatic Islet Purification • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250104 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/04/
Author Proof Edition • Miracles.Media • 20241228_1 • TakeNode 7118abf6-259c-494c-8445-879afc6d862c
Below the update today added in the 20241224 post : Pancreatic Islet Isolation With UW Solution • A New Concept • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20241224 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/24/pancreatic-islet-isolation-with-uw-solution-a-new-concept-20241224/
As reported in our poster and the manuscript delivered in Barcelona of our paper ‘Pancreatic Islet Isolation With UW Solution: A New Concept’ we had been using collagenase in UW solution in this first short (n=4) series of experiments.
Please note, that I changed the description of the collagenase solution to Hanks’ solution (HBBS) when editing the author proof edition shortly before publication of the final paper August 1990 (PMID_2202137 ; 14) — to best convey our current insights and practice.
For hypothetical reasons only — because the UWS was expected to be detrimental perhaps to cell viablity at the higher temperatures during collagenase digestion of the pancreas (the first stage of islet isolation) — I decided to change the collagenase solution in June 1989 when I began a new series of islet isolations for our first canine islet transplants. From that point on, a modified Hanks’ solution was used for collagenase (17).
We did not observe a difference at the time , whether using one or the other solution for collagenase digestion , with respect to either islet purity, recovery, or viability at islet isolation and days later in culture.
Years later , again tor hypothetical reasons , collagenase in UWS was chosen for the isolation of pig islets, in experiments with a long cold ischemia time of the pancreas during transport with distant pancreas procurement from sows in a slaugtherhouse — Ballering (distant family) in Son — near the south border of The Netherlands, with injection of cold collagenase solution before transport, with the aim of better preservation of the islets (18).
Notes
17) Michael P.M. van der Burg. Pancreatic islet transplantation: studies on the technique and efficacy of islet isolation and transplantation. (Doctoral Thesis, Faculty of Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) , Leiden University), Boskoop: M.P.M. van der Burg | Miracles.Media (ISBN electronic, pdf, 9789080216402 ; ISBN print 9789080216419, 9080216410), 1994: 192 p. Leiden University https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/permalink/31UKB_LEU/18s393l/alma9940161419602711
18) Van der Burg MPM, Graham JM. Iodixanol density gradient preparation in University of Wisconsin solution for porcine islet purification. ScientificWorldJournal. 2003 Dec 1;3:1154-9. doi: 10.1100/tsw.2003.107. PMID: 14646009; PMCID: PMC5974767.
Citation info : Author Proof Edition • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20241228 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/28/
Michel van der Burg • 20241224 • Last update 20241228-1614
In November 1989 in Barcelona, I had my first opportunity to present a paper at a major international organ transplantation meeting — the 4th ESOT — focusing on the rationale for using the UW organ preservation solution during pancreatic islet isolation.
Excited about giving a talk and poster presentation at this 4th ESOT congress in Barcelona, I forgot to take my poster from the overhead compartment of the plane upon arrival in Barcelona. A new poster was made on the spot at the Sandoz booth in the congress venue, by cut and paste work using the manuscript of the congress proceedings paper (PMID 2202137) and enlargement with a Sandoz A3 photocopier.
Due to design constraints, the author affiliation info was omitted, and the Du Pont logo was added (image 20241025_1).
That photo of the poster board in Barcelona (20241025_1) was used for creating this digitally remastered poster presented here (20241025_2) — which now includes the complete manuscript, as well as the Du Pont logo ;)
The Nov ’89 Barcelona publications, were the first ones dedicated to presenting the concept , the rationale, for using the UW organ preservation solution during pancreatic islet isolation.
This wasn’t the first time we reported the news of our results with this new, innovative, method developed in our pre-clinical model for the isolation and purification of pancreatic islets of Langerhans for transplantation in diabetic patients. Below that background, publications, and papers available for download.
I was well aware of the development in the late 80s by Belzer’s team at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (USA) of the new solution to preserve pancreas donor organs during cold storage for transplantation :
In 1986 the Belzer team had reported on the newly developed cold storage solution for pancreas preservation, the University of Wisconsin (UW) Solution (1).
From 1986 our colleague Rutger Ploeg (from the Department of Surgery of Leiden University) had been doing PhD research in Belzer’s organ preservation laboratory in Madison. He introduced the ‘…new cold storage solution, the “UW-Solution” in a letter Dec. 10th, 1987 to all Eurotransplant centres (2), and I had assisted during Rutger Ploeg’s preservation research in Madison on the UW solution in pancreas transplantation in dogs, by calculating the k-values of glucose tolerance (3,4).
In early 1989, I wondered how our research, into improving the technique of pancreatic islet isolation, could benefit from the great interest in this new organ preservation solution, and the contacts through Ploeg with both the Belzer laboratory and Du Pont (Du Pont Critical Care, Waukegan, USA), the manufacturer of the commercial UW Solution.
The most logical , traditional, choice would be, to investigate organ preservation of the pancreas prior to pancreatic islet isolation. However, logistically, this seemed to be too much of a change in our research.
Therefore, in February 1989, I made the radical choice of testing the UW Solution as a replacement for conventional isolation solutions in our preclinical transplantation model of canine islet isolation.
A research plan was drawn up for Du Pont (Robert Carter, Clinical Research Project Coordinator, DuPont, UK), and we started our work March 1989. At first — the first two islet isolation experiments — the UW Solution was only used at the first stage of the isolation procedure, as the collagenase solution for pancreatic injection, transport, and digestion in the laboratory.
From April 1989 on, the UW-Solution was used in all our isolation steps, both before density gradient purification, and also for washing the purified islets.
The research started in April 1989 with the rationale , that : because the UW-Solution (UWS) protects the viability of the pancreas during cold storage, the UWS can also improve the yield of viable isolated islets, because islet isolation also takes place mainly at low temperature.
However, from the first time in April 1989 that the UW-Solution was used during all isolation steps, the tissue immediately appeared different, with almost complete islet purification due to a clear difference in islet density and the darker and more compact looking exocrine pancreatic tissue, compared to the previous conventional isolations.
I did not expect this… but I understood it immediately, even during that first isolation: the effect of UWS during the isolation, the effect on the density, by counteracting cell swelling of especially the other, exocrine, pancreatic tissue, resulting in that tremendous improvement in the purification of islets.
The news of the exciting finding of over 90% purity of these UWS-isolated islets was brought first that month, April 1989, during my oral presentation (5) at the General Surgery Science Days, the yearly meeting on the current scientific research taking place at the Department of Surgery of the Leiden University Hospital (now LUMC) in Leiden , Holland .
Next, a manuscript was submitted June or July 1989 for publication of a Letter in The Lancet (6)… but was rejected.
Internationally , the news of both our first pre-clinical islet transpant, and the islet purification success when using UWS during islet isolation, was first reported July 8, 1989 at the Anglo Danish Dutch Diabetes Group meeting in Oxford, UK (7). National news reports appeared first September ’89 in the Cicero magazine (8) , and Oct ’89 in the Dutch newspaper Leidsch Dagblad (9).
Internationally at a major meeting, the UWS news was first presented in a poster presentation September 1989 in Minneapolis (10). The UWS data had been added ad hoc in the poster – that is , it wasn’t part of the accepted abstract. The first proceedings paper on our UWS work was also submitted at that meeting , and was published April ’90 (11).
Finally , November 1989 in Barcelona, Spain – at the 4th ESOT meeting – the first presentations followed, focussing on the concept — the rationale — for using the UW organ preservation solution during pancreatic islet isolation — in the book of abstracts (12), the poster shown above (13) that was created from the proceedings paper submitted at this meeting (14), and , I included this UWS work also ad hoc in the talk delivered at this meeting on comparison of islet isolation techniques (12, 15, 16). I plan to post on that talk soon.
As reported in our poster and the manuscript delivered in Barcelona of our paper ‘Pancreatic Islet Isolation With UW Solution: A New Concept’ we had been using collagenase in UW solution in this first short (n=4) series of experiments.
Please note, that I changed the description of the collagenase solution to Hanks’ solution (HBBS) when editing the author proof edition shortly before publication of the final paper August 1990 (PMID_2202137 ; 14) — to best convey our current insights and practice.
For hypothetical reasons only — because the UWS was expected to be detrimental perhaps to cell viablity at the higher temperatures during collagenase digestion of the pancreas (the first stage of islet isolation) — I decided to change the collagenase solution in June 1989 when I began a new series of islet isolations for our first canine islet transplants. From that point on, a modified Hanks’ solution was used for collagenase (17).
We did not observe a difference at the time* , whether using one or the other solution for collagenase digestion , with respect to either islet purity, recovery, or viability at islet isolation and days later in culture.
Years later , collagenase in UWS was chosen for the isolation of pig islets, in experiments with a long cold ischemia time of the pancreas during transport with distant pancreas procurement from sows in a slaugtherhouse — Ballering (distant family) in Son — near the south border of The Netherlands, with injection of cold collagenase solution before transport, with the aim of better preservation of the islets (18).
20241227-1329 Better copy of Minneapolis proceedings paper replaces PMID_2158174
20241228-1614 Author Proof section on the collagenase solution changes
*20250124-0244 Added reference to audio of data discussion posted in : Percoll UWS Purification Pancreatic Islets • ESOT 1991 Talk • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20250114 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2025/01/14/
Citation info : Pancreatic Islet Isolation With UW Solution • A New Concept • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20241224 • URL michelvanderburg.com/2024/12/24/
Begin • @1MEMO 20241220 • TakeNode 05bbc184-0e03-41ea-bf9e-3be97c995eac
