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Mission

Type 1 diabetes, also known as 'juvenile diabetes', results from a self-destructive immune response against the insulin producing pancreatic beta cells. As a result of this so-called 'autoimmune' disease, patients with type 1 diabetes develop a life long dependence on insulin replacement therapy. Unfortunately, this form of treatment is often insufficient for preventing a number of debilitating complications including heart disease, blindness, and kidney disease, among others. As a result, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) is committed to find a method for preventing or permanently reversing this disorder; an effort that would undoubtedly benefit from an improved understanding of how type 1 diabetes develops.

To that end, one of the major accomplishments in type 1 diabetes research over the past two decades has been the ability to identify, through serological testing, 'islet cell autoantibodies'; markers that single out individuals at increased risk for type 1 diabetes long before overt symptoms of the disorder develop. Islet cell autoantibodies can be present in a limited number of forms, the two most predominant being anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibodies (GADA) and anti-insulinoma associated protein 2 autoantibodies (IA2A). However, and somewhat surprisingly, many of our current concepts as to how type 1 diabetes develops result from autopsy based studies of human pancreas dating back to the 1960s (which indicated patients with this disorder had white blood cell infiltration of pancreatic islets ... a condition termed 'insulitis'), and more recently, from investigations of pancreatic material obtained from rodent models for the disease. Thanks to improved research tools, more recent autopsy studies of pancreata obtained from a limited number of individuals with type 1 diabetes have, however, challenged longstanding dogmas of how type 1 diabetes develops. In addition, studies from an even more limited group of individuals, islet autoantibody-positive cadaveric organ donors, have furthered a self-admission that much remains to be learned from studies of the pancreas (and other potential tissues influencing the disease) of individuals with type 1 diabetes, as well as those who may not currently show symptoms but are at high risk of eventual development of the disorder (i.e., islet cell autoantibody positive individuals).

Based on this need, and following a year of scientific review and evaluation of expert opinion, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has agreed to organize and develop a project known as nPOD; the Network for Pancreatic Organ donors with Diabetes. The goals of the nPOD initiative are to: 1) Establish a network to determine the feasibility of procuring and characterizing, in a collaborative manner, pancreata and related tissues (spleen, lymph node, pancreatic lymph node, peripheral blood) from cadaveric organ donors with type 1 diabetes as well as those whom are islet autoantibody positive; and 2) Utilizing these tissues, investigators will address key immunological, histological, viral, and metabolic questions related to how type 1 diabetes develops.