steven.paraskevas@mcgill.ca

Dr. Steven Paraskevas is Professor of Surgery at McGill University in Montreal, and Director of Pancreas and Islet Transplantation at the McGill University Health Centre. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. at McGill and completed his fellowship in transplantation at the University of Minnesota. In 2015, he led the development of the islet transplant program at McGill, the first program in eastern Canada.

Dr. Paraskevas maintains an active research program focusing on allograft release of extracellular vesicles and their link to allo- and autoimmune activation. His lab also studies the Th17/Treg axis and its influence on alloimmunity. He is part of a McGill research group developing stem cell-based strategies for beta-cell replacement and holds research funding from the Stem Cell Network, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program.

r. Paraskevas is a former President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation and the current Chair of the Kidney Transplant Advisory Committee of Canadian Blood Services. He is a Councilor for the International Pancreas and Islet Transplantation Association and an Associate Editor for Transplantation.

ATomei@med.miami.edu

Dr. Tomei holds a MS in Materials Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) and a PhD from the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). In her current position as the director of the Islet Immunoengineering Laboratory at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI), she is applying her unique background in bioengineering and immunology to develop novel immunoengineering platforms to prevent rejection after islet transplantation and to promote antigen-specific tolerance for a cure of type-1 diabetes.

Shareen.Forbes@ed.ac.uk

Shareen Forbes is Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Lead Physician of the Islet Transplant Programme in Scotland and Visiting Professor of the Islet Transplant Programme, Edmonton, Canada. She graduated in Medicine from the University of Edinburgh and did specialist training in Diabetes, Endocrinology and General Medicine at Imperial College London where she was later awarded a Novo Nordisk UK Foundation Fellowship to undertake PhD studies. She was subsequently awarded a Diabetes UK Clinical Intermediate Fellowship examining metabolism in people with glucose intolerance which she undertook at Imperial College, London and then at the University of Edinburgh.

Shareen Forbes has expertise in medical statistics. Working with Professor Peter Senior and Professor James Shapiro in Edmonton, she developed the BETA-2 score, a composite score of islet function. She examines the outcomes of islet transplant recipients in a number of islet transplant programmes and conducts metabolic studies in people with Type 1 diabetes.

A major focus in her research laboratory is of islet and stem cell derived islet transplantation in preclinical models, including the underlying mechanisms limiting the success of the procedure. Working closely with researchers in the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult she has made important contributions in the field showing the efficacy of cell therapies and other co-therapies when co-transplanted with islets in pre-clinical models. She directs a translational clinical programme that actively pursues these approaches at the clinical interface to improve long-term outcomes in people living with Type 1 diabetes.

jfridell@iupui.edu

Jonathan Fridell, MD is the Chief of Abdominal Transplant Surgery at Indiana University (IU). He has actively participated in all aspects of the abdominal transplant program including adult and pediatric liver, kidney, intestine, multivisceral and pancreas transplantation. His research is mostly focused on outcomes following pancreas transplantation and he has authored over 125 manuscripts and book chapters and is currently the Deputy Editor for Pancreas and Islet Transplantation for the journal Clinical Transplantation and an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Transplantation. Dr. Fridell also has a long history of participation with the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the United Network for Organ Sharing (OPTN/UNOS) including a double term as the Chair of the Pancreas Transplant Committee. During his tenure, he lead the committee through several important projects including the Donor Lipase project, the Definition of Pancreas Allograft Failure project, Facilitated Pancreas Placement project, the ABO compatible nonidentical project and the Functional Inactivity project. He was also involved in the early process of drafting policies for requirements for Islet transplant programs.

Angelika.Gruessner@downstate.edu

Dr. Angelika Gruessner received a MS in Medical Information Science and a PhD in Theoretical Medicine both from the Ruprecht-Karl-Universität, Heidelberg in Germany. In addition, she went through a fellowship in Biostatistics at Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany. She works currently as a Professor in the Department of Medicine/Nephrology. The focal points of her work for over 30 years are the design, data collection, analysis and presentation of medical experiments, clinical studies, and randomized clinical trials in the field of diabetes research. For over 30 years she leads the International Pancreas Transplant Registry.

corinne.hoesli@mcgill.ca

Prof. Corinne Hoesli, Eng., PhD, Canada Research Chair in Cellular Therapy Bioprocess Engineering.

Prof. Hoesli is the head of the Stem Cell Bioprocessing Laboratory at McGill University. She is co-director of the Quebec Cell, Tissue and Gene Therapy Network – ThéCell, and a member of the McGill Regenerative Medicine network executive committee. She is a biochemical engineer with expertise in bioprocess development, stem cell culture optimization and encapsulation device engineering. Her research aims to develop bioprocesses to produce and transplant therapeutic cells to treat diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Her laboratory studies how cell culture materials impact stem cell and progenitor cell differentiation into useful therapeutic products. To biomanufacture cell-based products at scale, she works with companies and governmental organizations to tailor bioreactor design and operation parameters. To improve cell survival after transplantation, her laboratory is developing vascular biomaterials and 3D printing methods to create vascularized tissues. Over the past 5 years, Prof. Hoesli and her team have published over 20 articles in leading bioprocess engineering journals, as well as several patents related to cell culture materials and transplantation devices. Her leadership in bioengineering was recognized through the 2014 Martin Sinacore Outstanding Young Investigator Award from Engineering Conferences International & Biogen Idec, as well as the 2019 “Étoiles effervescence” award from Montreal InVivo.

Barbara.Ludwig@uniklinikum-dresden.de

Barbara Ludwig, MD PhD, is a professor at the University of Dresden, Germany. Her group is working on improvement of islet isolation and transplantation protocols in clinical practice and the development of novel therapeutic options in the field of beta cell replacement with a clear translational “bench to bedside” approach by linking experimental research with preclinical and clinical work.

Adriana.Migliorini@uhn.ca

Dr. Adriana Migliorini is a senior postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Maria Cristina Nostro’s laboratory, at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada. She studied medical biotechnology at the University of Florence (Italy) and completed her Ph.D. in human biology, at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Her research primarily revolves around the field of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and developmental biology, with a specific focus on the pancreas. Her current work involves investigating the composition and phenotype of the fetal pancreatic immune niche to gain a deeper understanding of its role during endocrine development and to explore novel applications for the treatment of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).

SNiederhaus@som.umaryland.edu

Dr. Niederhaus is a Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she took her first transplant surgery position in 2012 with an interest in kidney and pancreas transplantation. Since then, Dr. Niederhaus has served on the UNOS Pancreas Transplant Committee, where she is currently the committee chair. Dr. Niederhaus grew up in Germany, where at age 11 she underwent her first kidney transplant. Her experience with patient education was outstanding then, and she hopes to bring her experiences to this group. Leaving Germany after high school (Gymnasium), Dr. Niederhaus obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology, then trained at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, and completed residency, a two-year research fellowship, and a two-year transplant surgery fellowship all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Christian Schuetz is a physician scientist with expertise in Regenerative Medicine, T1D, Transplant Surgery. He is interested in pursuing novel therapeutic strategies for Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. His focus is on pancreatic beta cell replacement and immunologic transplant- and self-tolerance. He has extensive experience in clinical and experimental pancreatic islet transplantation, Hepatocyte Transplantation, Kidney transplantation, stem cell biology/directed differentiation, transplant immunology, preclinical models, IND/clinical trials, surgical ICU and general and transplant surgery. He holds an MD and PhD from the University of Cologne and did his general surgery residency at University of Cologne. He was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Pennsylvania first and then at Harvard. Then, he worked as Director of Immunology and Translational Medicine at Diagon Therapeutics in 2020-2022, then since 2023 he is the VP of Regenerative Medicine at Minutia.

f.vistoli@med.unipi.it

Fabio Vistoli MD, PhD in surgery, immunology and transplant biotechnology, contributed to the development of the pancreas and kidney transplant programs at the University of Pisa (Italy). Currently serves as Full Professor of Surgery at University of L’Aquila (Italy) heading the Division of General Surgery and Transplantation. He contributed to the description of several original surgical techniques in transplantation and pancreatic cancer surgery, conducted numerous prospective clinical trials, and explored new strategies to overcome immunological barriers in pancreas and kidney transplantations. He participated in the first robot assisted transplantations of kidney and pancreas. He published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index=38) and received several national and international research funding and awards.