The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, or NIDDK, has earmarked nearly $17 million for City of Hope’s Department of Information Sciences. The funds will support the department’s efforts as a national coordinating center for both human islet and intestinal stem cell research.

The funds come in two allotments to support two separate activities: A five-year, $14 million contract to support the department’s work as the nation’s islet cell distribution coordination center; and a grant for $2.9 million to allow the department to form a similar center for the NIDDK’s recently formed Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium.

Joyce Niland (Photo by Markie Ramirez)

City of Hope established the Islet Distribution Coordinating Center in 2002. The center facilitated distribution of islets produced by 14 islet isolation facilities across the nation, including one at City of Hope. Islets are found in the pancreas and produce insulin, which is necessary for metabolizing sugar. People with diabetes have difficulty making their own insulin and may require insulin injections or, in extreme cases, islet transplants.

The current funds continue the center’s efforts via creation of an interactive Web site through which approved islet investigators apply to receive human islets for their work. The coordinating center also will use the funds to establish contracts with other laboratories producing human islets for research.

Once contracted, these production facilities will then distribute the islets using a matching algorithm that the Islet Distribution Coordinating Center developed under a previous grant. The algorithm is a complex decision-making tool that considers researchers’ needs, including the number, type and characteristics of islets required for experimentation. Scientists need this algorithm to ensure timely and consistent access to the limited supply of human islets.

“Currently, the number of islets being produced meets only two-thirds of the overall research demand,” said Joyce C. Niland, Ph.D., Edward and Estelle Alexander Chair in Information Sciences and chair of the Department of Information Sciences. Beyond ensuring that human islet distribution is fair and equitable for all researchers, Niland and her team want to go one better.

“By contracting with more production labs and optimizing our islet distribution algorithm, our goal is to meet 100 percent of the demand within the next few years” she said.

Niland is principal investigator for both the Islet Distribution Coordinating Center contract and the grant to establish an intestinal stem cell coordinating center.

The focus of the Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium is to establish efficient and effective ways to isolate, preserve and characterize intestinal stem cells. The NIDDK funded eight research projects nationwide to form the Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium. Niland and her team will develop administrative procedures, coordinate resources, ensure the quality of stem cells and manage the data produced by the consortium researchers.

Researchers aim to study intestinal stem cells to better understand their biology and eventually help develop therapies for an array of intestinal diseases, including cancer.

According to Niland, the Intestinal Stem Cell Coordinating Center represents a logical continuation of the work begun with the Islet Distribution Coordinating Center.

Said Niland: “This newest grant will allow us to take the knowledge we’ve gained from the islet coordinating center and apply it more broadly across City of Hope’s mission. Coordinating these projects through City of Hope also strengthens and deepens the core expertise, analytic experience and systems development skills that we bring to internal City of Hope researchers.”