Precision Islet and Pancreas Biology & Functional Phenotyping Platform

Led by Dr. Patrick E. MacDonald (Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Islet Biology, Professor at the University of Alberta, Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan, and Visiting Professor at Lund University), our research program bridges fundamental cellular physiology with clinical translation in diabetes and metabolic disease. Our group has pioneered high-resolution approaches to dissect pancreatic islet cell dysfunction in human health, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D).

Pancreas Patch-Seq & Single-Cell Phenotyping: Combined single-cell electrophysiology (calcium/sodium currents, exocytosis) with single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and patch-proteomics to link transcriptomic heterogeneity directly to cell function and secretagogue responsiveness in human alpha and beta cells.

Stimulus-Secretion Coupling: Research focused on elucidating cellular pathways governing insulin and glucagon secretion using rodent models and human tissues.

Stem cell-Islet Maturation & Benchmarking: Assessing functional maturation, excitation-secretion coupling, and transcription factor regulatory networks in stem-cell-derived beta cells (SC-islets) compared to primary human donor islets.

Key Research Infrastructure Assets include the ADI IsletCore Biobank (www.isletcore.ca), the world's largest single-source provider of human research pancreata and islets. Processing 50–60 human donor organs annually under certified tissue repository protocols, it supplies primary human donor tissues, isolated islets, spleen, lymph nodes, and gut samples to ~200 academic and industry laboratories across three continents. HumanIslets.com Data Repository (www.humanislets.com)is an open-access, AI-enabled FAIR digital repository led by Dr. MacDonald (developed by Dr. Jeff Xia's group at McGill and a large North American Team). It integrates multi-omics, functional measures, and clinical/technical donor metadata fields across 650 human donor pancreata, offering ready-to-use computational workflows for biomarker discovery, mapping, and multi-omic integration. The Canadian Islet Research & Training Network (CIRTN-R2FIC; www.islets.ca): A national collaborative network co-founded by Dr. MacDonald connecting 55 laboratories across 13 Canadian institutions to support training, exchange and collaboration. Now led by a dedicated leadership committee.

Specific Value Proposition for EP PerMed & Personalised Medicine Consortia include:

1. Functional QC & Phenotypic Validation of Advanced Therapies (CGT / SC-Islets) in work currently funded by BreakthroughT1D, this effort may contribute to EP PerMed JTC 2027 mandates research into somatic cell, gene, or combined therapies. Our platform provides custom single-cell and tissue functional readouts, along with multi-omics analysis and integration.

2. Day 1 Data & Tissue Controls for Disease Stratification: Consortia developing cell therapies or targeted biotherapy vectors require well-characterized patient and donor control baselines. We provide immediate access to primary human donor tissue samples (ADI IsletCore) and pre-existing, FAIR-compliant multi-omic and single-cell datasets (HumanIslets.com) across non-diabetic, pre-diabetic, T1D, and T2D donors.

3. A member of key patient partner networks (Diabetes Action Canada SPOR (Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research)) and national trainee programs (CIRTN), ensuring end-user perspectives and ethical frameworks are embedded directly into consortium design.

4. Breakthrough T1D Global Partnership: As a Lead PI on active Breakthrough T1D strategic agreements, our participation in T1D-focused CGT proposals can leverage Breakthrough T1D’s global self-funded co-funding mechanism for EP PerMed.