Bradley Henry Collins, MD

(1) The laboratory's primary focus is the study of the feasibility of transplanting porcine islets into primates as a treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus. There is a severe shortage of human cadaveric pancreas donors for the 1 to 2 million type 1 diabetics in the United States. The use of human islets would further exacerbate the problem as 2 or 3 pancreases are required per recipient. In collaboration with Dr. Emmanuel Opara, an islet cell physiologist, we have purified islets from porcine pancreases, placed the islets in microcapsules, and transplanted the islets into diabetic baboons without the use of immunosuppression. Our goal is to demonstrated the utility of this system as a pre-clinical model.

(2) Recently, my laboratory has developed an interest in senescence of the liver. The project is a collaborative effort with hepatologist Dr. Don Rockey. We induce cirrhosis in young and old mice with carbon tetrachloride and then extract the intrahepatic lymphocytes. FACS technology is used to identified the lymphocyte populations and then sort them. The cytokine profile is then elucidated. We plan to use gene chip technology to assess the gene expression.