Gene engineering of intact islets for diabetes therapy

Description of projects available to graduate students:
Islet transplantation is an emerging therapy for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The allogeneic nature of the donor, however, necessitates a means by which the transplants can acquire a "stealthy" phenotype, essentially evading the host's immune surveillance. Our laboratory is using a variety of viral and non-viral technologies to engineer islets in a way where they evade the host's immune system. Currently, the strategies involve the use of EIAV, HIV lentiviral vectors as well as 3rd-4th generation adenovirus vectors encoding immunoregulatory and anti-apoptotic genes to promote engraftment and to prolong graft survival in autoimmune and non-autoimmune murine hosts.

Techniques graduate student will learn:
Viral vector production, immunological assays (MLR, cytokine measurement), and islet functional studies are being employed. The laboratory is part of the Division of Immunogenetics at Children's Hospital where technical assistance in transplantation, islet isolation and confocal microscopy/immunocytochemistry is readily available.