Become an nPOD Partner

Organ Procurement Organizations

The nPOD project relies on its partnerships with Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) nationwide. If you are an OPO director and are interested in learning more about nPOD, please contact us for more information.

We are excited that you are interested in learning more about becoming an nPOD partner! Each time your organization donates to research you have the potential to save thousands of lives. Your partnership with nPOD could provide the gifts that will inform many important type 1 diabetes research projects.

Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to work with our project. There are a few things to you should know when considering partnering with nPOD:

•  nPOD creates an opportunity for organ procurement organizations to participate in meaningful, non-profit, collaborative research while simultaneously fulfilling their requirement for CMS accreditation.
  
  
• We can provide you and your front line staff with training and education about the program via webinar – Continuing education credits may also be possible.
  
  
• We have a 24-hour call center in place and accept referrals on weekends and holidays. If you have a donor that meets the criteria listed below, simply call 1-866-731-6585 to refer to our program.
  
  
• To facilitate the recovery of tissues, we have also formed a partnership with the International Institute for the Advancement of Medicine (IIAM). If it is more convenient for your organization, you can call IIAM and they will assist in the recovery, handling and shipping of the tissue to our facility in Gainesville, FL.

What type of donor is sought by nPOD?

1. Donors with any duration of type 1 diabetes
   
   AND
   
   
2. If  your OPO screens with one of our partner serology labs (LABS, Inc. of Denver, LABS, Inc. of Philadelphia, MNIT or Miami), nPOD is focused on identifying donors who have type 1 diabetes-related autoantibodies (AAb) but no clinical diagnosis of the disease. To identify these donors, we have set up a partnership with 4 serology labs to perform two assays called IA-2 Ab and GAD Ab. If either of these assays is reactive, we ask that the OPO refer the donor to nPOD for recovery of the pancreas and related tissues.
   

For more information on our donor criteria, please see our current Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for nPOD donors.

If you are an OPO director and are interested in learning more about nPOD, please contact us for more information.

Screening Laboratories

Our screening laboratory partners are nPOD's "detectives," identifying donors that are in early stages of pre-type 1 diabetes (have type 1 diabetes autoantibodies) but have no clinical diagnosis of the disease. Our laboratory partners screen for multiple OPOs and are recognized as national leaders in serology testing.

Our laboratory partners test over 1,500 donors annually for the nPOD project. Gifts from autoantibody positive donors have the potential to help our scientists answer fundamental questions related to the etiology and progression of type 1 diabetes.

If you are a lab director and are interested in learning more about nPOD and how to work with nPOD, please contact us for more information.