Dr Chloe Rackham

Improving islet transplantation outcomes by harnessing the mesenchymal stromal cell secretome to target the donor islet graft and host environment.

Our research aims to define the mechanisms though which Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs) or the biologically active substances that they produce should be used to improve the efficiency of clinical islet transplantation. Our experiments have shown that MSCs produce Annexin A1 (ANXA1) and that ANXA1 partially mimics the beneficial effects of using MSCs. We aim to define a 'cocktail' of therapeutic factors produced by MSCs, that can be used instead of the MSCs, to fully reproduce the beneficial effects of MSCs in transplantation protocols. Defining MSC-derived biotherapeutics will allow simple modifications to clinical transplantation and allow safe and reproducible modifications to be carried out. Through improving the efficiency of the transplant procedure, clinical islet transplantation can be offered as a therapeutic option to the greatest possible number of patients with Type 1 Diabetes and improve outcomes for individual transplant recipients.