“I am proud of how we have used the tangential nature of research to yield faster results-- starting in one area, and applying it in another. ”
Bernie Tuch, MD, PhD, Sydney, Australia
June 17, 2010
Rafael Vega, Ph.D. was awarded the 2010 Genentech Presidential Student Mentor Award from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons for his research in gold nanoparticles. . .
Rafael Vega, Ph.D. was awarded the 2010 Genentech Presidential Student Mentor Award from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) at this years’ 10th annual American Transplant Congress held in San Diego, CA. This highly competitive award recognizes outstanding research potential in the field of transplantation, and provides funding for proposed research in the upcoming academic year in the form of stipends.
Rafael came to the University of Illinois at Chicago to pursue his M.D., after completing his Ph.D. in Biomaterials Chemistry with a concentration on Nanotechnology at Northwestern University. His dissertation focused on the application of functional nanomaterials for cellular therapeutics and biodiagnostic assays.
For the past 2 years, Rafael has been working with the Chicago Diabetes Project on the development of novel theraputeic nanomaterials to improve islet transplantation outcomes. He intends on targeting and manipulating molecular signaling and growth factors to minimize inflammation, apoptosis, oxidative stress, amyloid formation, and immunologic mediators, which could potentially improve graft function or provide a new tool to the Islet Cell Genesis (ICG).
In a recently accepted research article in the journal Surgery, Rafael and his co-authors successfully demonstrated that gold nanoparticles could be modified and used as vectors to penetrate an islet without compromising islet function in vitro and in vivo, in a way that was once not available or possible. In the past, this has been problematic due to the complex multicellular architecture of the pancreatic islet. Now, islets can have genes inserted and with toxicity rate of only 2%. Most importantly, the ability for mouse and human islets treated with gold nanoparticles were still able to reverse diabetes when transplanted into diabetic mice models.
This has an implication for pancreatic islet transplantation, which has emerged as an alternative therapy for Type I diabetes with variable success. Although some of this variability cannot be changed, it can be potentially manipulated by molecular therapeutic approaches,that can minimize stress, inflammation, immunologic factors which can potentially improve graft function. This new technology may prove a new useful tool in the study and hopefully, generation of a limitless supply of islets or beta-cells for pancreatic transplantation.
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