The mission of the Chicago Project is to make islet cell transplantation, the most promising treatment for diabetes today, a viable option for all who suffer with diabetes;to overcome today's shortage of donor iselt cells; to address the need of long-term immunosuppression; and to prevent long-term graff loss.
As the first scientific collaboration of its kind, the project links leading scientists from the US, Canada, Switzerland, France, Israel, Norway, Slovakia, and their partners together to accelerate, develop and improve upon islet cell transplantation to translate the results into patient care. Funding for the scientific collaboration to bring our scientists together was provided by the Washington Square Health Foundation. With this unique project already in motion and producing successful results, our supporters are partnering around the world to make the goals of the Chicago Project a reality.
The Chicago Project challenge is to help fund the extraordinary milestones that translate research from the bench to the beside in the form of islet cell transplants for the millions of people living with diabetes. Over the next five years, the Chicago Project and the Chicago Islet Consortium will continue to have an impact on Chicago's hospitals and beyond. By bringing the worlds top scientists and researchers together in a collaboration to find a functional cure, we will be better equipped to provide a treatment worldwide.
To control patients' blood-sugar levels, the Chicago Project plans to produce in the laboratory an unlimited source of islet cells that are suitable and safe for transplantation in humans. By delivering a limitless source of pancreatic islet cells, members of the Chicago Project team offers hope to the millions of patients throughout the world a chance at living a normal and healthy life free of the management problems of controlling diabetes.
Islet-cell transplantation offers a cell-based, functional cure for diabetes by encapsulating cells to protect against the immune system’s assaults on the recipient’s cells. These encapsulated cells will be implanted in diabetic patients and will replace the missing insulin-producing cells, thereby controlling blood-sugar levels.