nPOD

The Diabetes Center of Excellence is fortunate to serve as the primary coordinating agency for a unique research project called nPOD (Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes). Funded by a grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), nPOD is an innovative program that provides scientists from around the world with high-resolution tissue samples from organ donors who have consented to advance a cure through the gift of research. Currently, nPOD supports over 30 type 1 diabetes-related scientific studies at institutions around the world.

The goals of the nPOD initiative are to: 1) To maintain a network 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) Using these tissues, investigators will address key immunological, histological, viral, and metabolic questions related to how type 1 diabetes develops.

To find out more, please visit their website.

Organ Donation

At nPOD, we are continually humbled by the decision families make to contribute to type 1 diabetes research through organ donation. While we make every effort to honor the wishes of the donor family, we cannot accept all donations at this time.

To further scientific knowledge, the following groups of donor gifts to nPOD investigators are of particular importance:

• Donors with Longstanding type 1 diabetes
• Donors with recently diagnosed Type 1 diabetes (less than 7 years of type 1 diabetes duration)
• Donors who have type 1 diabetes-related autoantibodies, are between the ages of 0-45, and have not been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes

For more information on organ donation, please see their website.

Staff at the University of Florida

Mark Atkinson, PhD – JDRF nPOD Executive Director

Martha Campbell-Thompson, DVM, PhD – Director of the Organ Procurement and Pathology Core

Irina Kusmartseva, PhD  - JDRF nPOD Lab Director

Lindsey Kallman – JDRF nPOD Program Assistant

Jane Moraski, MS – JDRF nPOD Assistant Director

Leah Retrum, MS – JDRF nPOD Project Program Assistant

Investigators at The University of Florida

Mark Atkinson, PhD – JDRF nPOD Executive Director

• Projects:
  Pancreatic Immunologic and Metabolic Parameters
  Histopathology of Type 1 Diabetes

Todd Brusko, PhD

• Project:
  Flow Cytometric Immunophenotyping of nPOD Donors

Martha Campbell-Thompson, PhD – Director of the Organ Procurement and Pathology Core

• Projects:
  Gut Microbiota in Early Type 1 Diabetes
  Pancreatic Immunologic and Metabolic Parameters

Joe Larkin, PhD

• Project:
  TCR Utilization in Type 1 Diabetes Insulitis

Erik Triplett, PhD

• Project:
  Gut Microbiota in Early Type 1 Diabetes

Clive Wasserfall, MS

• Project:
  Humoral Immunity in Type 1 Diabetes

Contact

For other inquiries concerning nPOD, please contact:

(352) 273-9297
nPOD@pathology.ufl.edu