I am an ideas person.  I read a lot in different fields and dream a lot.  The presence of endocrine islets in an abdominal exocrine salivary gland has puzzled numerous people for years.  Today we know that the exocrine and endocrine pancreas have a common origin.  I am at the start of work striving to derive islets from the exocrine fraction in vitro (US patent in 2005).  I am responsible for the human islet isolation here in Lille, France (50-60 pancreata/yr) and we have an active clinical islet transplant program and would love to test new approaches clinically.

I have known José for years.  He is a locomotive, always pushing ahead.  The Chicago Diabetes Project gives individual scientists the opportunity to work toward a common goal that one is unlikely ever to reach alone within a reasonable amount of time.

The pancreatic precursor project represents a vast degree of complementarity with fundamental developmental biologists who have little in common with applied islet transplant scientists or surgeons.  Each person leaves his “own world” and meets the others at some overlapping area.

I am excited to have a role in this project and positively awed by the immensity and variety of the projects tackled (encapsulation, precursors, proliferation).  Coupled with the open dynamic nature of bringing in new collaborators as necessary and the positive, diplomatic, and energetic characteristics of the leader, driving the different teams to achieve the goal without obstacles, this is a fascinating time in diabetes research.