The Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP) began at City of Hope (COH) as the Islet Cell Resource in 2002, and has been operating as the IIDP since 2009, as the largest organized effort in the world to provide human islet preparations for research. Because human islet research is critical to understanding pancreatic cellular biology and the pathophysiology of diabetes, and given the substantial differences to murine islets, access to the human islets is essential to translate findings from cell lines and mouse models. Therefore, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), continues to fund the IIDP, led by Drs. Joyce C. Niland and Carmella Evans-Molina, which affords ongoing coordination, information technology, and financial infrastructure, while offering innovative new biomaterials and integrated data to advance diabetes research.

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Pivotal to IIDP’s mission is providing reliable, high quality resources to the research community from industry-leading Islet Isolation Centers (IICs). Each of the current 10 geographically diverse IICs was qualified based on: isolation team and center director credentials, working relationships with local as well as specific distant Organ Procurement Organizations with provision of consistent access to quality pancreata from donors that have been qualified for organ transplant, exemplary islet isolation history, and stable recipient satisfaction.

The IIDP integrates this interactive group of IICs to maintain standardized protocols for the culture and shipping of human islets, both cultured and flash frozen. Most recently, the IIDP’s IICs offer an array of biospecimens from the same islet donor, including non-islet pancreatic tissue (ductal and acinar - fresh or frozen), serum, plasma, duodenal tissue, peripancreatic lymph nodes, spleen samples, and frozen pancreatic pieces. Each shipment is accompanied by comprehensive donor and isolation information, pre-shipment islet assessments for purity, viability, and islet quality ranking. The IIDP maintains an exclusive algorithm as part of a fair and equitable Islet Allocation System, which broadcasts the availability of human islets and non-islet biospecimens from each isolation center to subscribing investigators world-wide, tracks acceptance of tissue, and maintains feedback from the recipients. More information

The Human Islet Phenotyping Program (HIPP) was established per NIH mandate in the summer of 2016 and awarded to the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center after a peer-reviewed application process. The HIPP is managed by Dr. Marcela Brissova, also director of the Islet Procurement and Analysis Core at the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center. The goal of the HIPP initiative is to provide standardized assessment of IIDP-contracted human islet preparations to understand the relationship between islet phenotypic features and key donor characteristics. HIPP generated data include purity, viability and potency assessments as well as hormone content and histological analysis of total preparation for endocrine vs exocrine cells and average composition of α, β, and δ cells through standardized assays. Real-time and complementary data are currently available to the IIDP-affiliated Islet Isolation Centers and Investigators through the IIDP-HIPP database

In 2020, IIDP implemented the Human Islet Genotyping Initiative (HIGI) via a subaward to Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA with Dr. Anna Gloyn, a top tier genetics collaborator with expertise in diabetes, as director of this program. To provide a summary of the genetic characteristics of each donor, the HIGI will generate partitioned genetic risk (pGRS) scores for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. These pGRS are visualized on the IIDP Research Data Repository (RDR), to provide an overview of the genetic contributions of a variety of physiological processes (e.g. islet cell, liver, adipose dysfunction) to each individual donor’s diabetes risk. HIGI also provides comprehensive, genomic ancestry data for each islet donor, which can also be found in the RDR.

The IIDP prides itself on providing excellent customer service and robust facilitation of high-level science to all approved investigators who participate in our program world-wide. IIDP has developed a custom Matching Algorithm for Islet Distribution (MAID) to provide fair and equitable human islet distribution from our contracted islet isolation centers to our subscribing investigators via our computerized Islet Allocation System.

Researchers interested in accessing islets, tissue, or data through the IIDP must complete an online application. Approved investigators are given access to the IIDP secure website and personalized pages containing details of their islet distribution records, including donor data, islet isolation information, and pre-shipment assessment results, alerts to pending offers or warnings for limited funds or missing feedback forms, and protected access to study’s financial information. More information