Happening here: Research and innovation in diabetes

Islet cell isolation and distribution updates

In 2025, Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute, a part of Norton Healthcare and Norton Children’s, became an official member of the National Institutes of Health-supported Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP). This is an elite network of only 10 sites in the United States dedicated to providing high-quality human islet cells to advance diabetes research.

Through this program, our team processes donated pancreases, isolates high-quality islet cells and distributes them to leading investigators across the country and world.

To date, partners including Vanderbilt University and the National Institute on Aging have already benefited from the islet products produced through our program. All donated pancreases used for IIDP efforts are provided through our primary organ procurement organization, Network for Hope, ensuring that donors’ and families’ wishes are honored in service of accelerating a cure for diabetes.

Islet cell research and transplant production laboratories

Chronic pancreatitis is a devastating disease that often progresses to diabetes and long-term insulin dependence. To address this critical regional need, we are establishing the first total pancreatectomy with islet cell autotransplantation (TPIAT) program in Kentucky. This complex therapy — currently approved and covered by insurance for adults — offers patients the opportunity to preserve their own islet function following pancreas removal.

The program will bring together specialists in surgery, endocrinology, gastroenterology, pain management, care coordination, laboratory operations and administrative leadership to build a seamless patient-care pathway for this highly specialized treatment.

Transplant surgeon Yaser Al-Salmay, M.D., of the UofL Health – Trager Transplant Center, has been recruited to lead the clinical surgical component of the program, and patients will receive transplants on Norton Healthcare’s downtown campus. In addition, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-compliant islet cell isolation and transplant production laboratory led by Bala Appakalai, Ph.D., director of the islet cell research and transplant program, has been constructed and is in the final FDA quality assessment period. We remain firmly on course to complete a transplant in our first clinical patient in early 2026.

Building the future of diabetes care

While establishing an islet cell laboratory and transplant capabilities represents a major milestone, it is only Phase I of our broader vision for islet-based therapies. The technical, regulatory and clinical operational infrastructure now in development is the platform on which we will build a full donor allogeneic islet transplantation program for Type 1 diabetes patients.

This next phase holds extraordinary potential. Our ambition is not simply to introduce a new procedure, but to position Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute and the islet cell lab as a national leader in cellular therapies for diabetes.

We are building a program both to participate in the future of diabetes care — as well as to prepare to shape it.

You can be part of this transformative care. Learn more now or call (502) 446-4483 (GIVE).