Human islet distribution programme for basic research: activity over the last 5 years

To the Editor: Single-centre or collaborative efforts have been made to provide human pancreatic islets for use in basic science research. These include the Integrated Islet Distribution Program in the USA [1], the Human Islet Distribution Program for Basic Research at the University of Alberta in Canada [2] and the Oxford Islet Transplant Program in the UK. The European Consortium for Islet Transplantation (ECIT) set up the human islet distribution programme for basic research (http://ecit.dri-sanraffaele.org/en/activeprogram/index.html) in 2006 to distribute high-quality human islets to the European diabetes research community. The programme currently involves the San Raffaele Scientific Institute (Milan, Italy), the Hopitaux Universitaires de Geneve, (Geneve, Switzerland), Uppsala University Hospital (Uppsala, Sweden) and the Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire de Lille (France). The programme is coordinated by the San Raffaele Diabetes Research Institute and receives financial support from the JDRF. A web-based platform was developed in 2009 to coordinate and track programme activity (http://ecit.dri-sanraffaele.org/en/register/ index.html). Islet isolation and shipment were performed according to centre protocols. Here we report on programme activity over the past 5 years (from 1 November 2009 to 31 October 2014). One-hundred and twenty research groups have completed the online registration process. Of these, 66 users havemade at least one application to receive islets. A total of 93 applications were submitted from 13 countries: Switzerland (n=26), Sweden (n=13), Israel (n=13), Germany (n=12), France (n=9), Italy (n=7), Spain (n=4), Denmark (n=3), UK (n=2) and one each from Austria, Norway, Ireland and Finland. The total number of islets requested was 106.187 million (Fig. 1a). An ideal islet purity of ≥70% was requested in 97% of the applications. In terms of applications from individual research groups, the median number of requested islets was 20×10 (IQR 12.5×10) in 20 (IQR 37.5) shipments. Over the years the requests for human pancreatic islets from the programme for use in basic science research have increased substantially, with the number of islets requested reaching 31.042 million in 2014. The designated use of the islets in basic science, as stated on the request form to the ECIT centres, are shown in Fig. 1c, categorised into different areas of research. Over the first 5 years of the programme, a total of 31.643 million human islets have been distributed throughout 1,130 shipments (Fig 1a,b). The production and delivery of islets by the ECIT centres have been stable over the years. However, because of the burgeoning demand for islets and the lack of funding to cover additional islet isolation procedures, the R. Nano :R. Melzi :A. Mercalli : L. Piemonti (*) Diabetes Research Institute, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Via Olgettina 60, 20132 Milan, Italy e-mail: piemonti.lorenzo@hsr.it