International workshop: islet transplantation without borders enabling islet transplantation in G reece with international collaboration and innovative technology

Recently, initiatives have been undertaken to establish an islet transplantation program in A thens, G reece. A major hurdle is the high cost associated with the establishment and maintenance of a clinical‐grade islet manufacturing center. A collaboration was established with the U niversity H ospitals of G eneva, S witzerland, to enable remote islet cell manufacturing with an established and validated fully operational team. However, remote islet manufacturing requires shipment of the pancreas from the procurement to the islet manufacturing site (in this case from anywhere in G reece to G eneva) and then shipment of the islets from the manufacturing site to the transplant site (from G eneva to A thens). To address challenges related to cold ischemia time of the pancreas and shipment time of islets, a collaboration was initiated with the U niversity of A rizona, T ucson, USA . An international workshop was held in A thens, D ecember 2011, to mark the start of this collaborative project. Experts in the field presented in three main sessions: (i) islet transplantation: state‐of‐the‐art and the “network approach”; (ii) technical aspects of clinical islet transplantation and outcomes; and (iii) islet manufacturing – from the donated pancreas to the islet product. This manuscript presents a summary of the workshop.