After founding the Leiden Islet Laboratory (1) in the University Hospital Leiden in Holland (later known as LUMC), and reporting the outcome of our first year of canine islet research at a national meeting November 1987 (2), next, this first poster ‘Quantification of canine pancreatic islet isolation’ for a world congress was presented March 1988 at the First International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation (IPITA)* in Stockholm, Sweden (3,4).

This pilot work introduced our novel approach of volume quantification of islet isolation outcome by measuring the volume of the isolated islets . In addition we compared the outcome with the total volume of islets measured in the canine pancreas.
Note, that a similar approach, using islet volume measurements for the quantification in islet isolation assessment in man and large animals, was proposed the next year in an International Workshop during the 2nd Congress on Pancreas and Islet Transplantation, Sep. 1989, in Minneapolis, by Camillo Ricordi and some 150 participants from 30 institutes actively involved in islet isolation and transplantation — proposing a procedure for standardized islet volume measurements (based on the number of islets in diameter classes incrementing 50 µm) and reporting outcome in Equivalent Islet Numbers (total volume expressed in the equivalent number of spheres with a 150 µm diameter; abbreviated as EIN, currently known as the number of IEQs (Islet EQuivalents), which greatly enhanced islet research (5).

Unfortunately back problems prevented me to attend that 1st IPITA congress, I was looking forward to, but, fortunately, the poster was presented by my colleagues Hein Gooszen (Surgery Department) and Marijke Frölich (Chemical Pathology Department) of the University Hospital Leiden. Ms. Marijke Frölich also presented a nice poster (7,8) on our quantification of the islets cells , the hormones, in the right lobe (aka , the duodenal segment , the ventral lobe) and left lobe of the canine pancreas (aka, the body and distal tail , the dorsal lobe) of the beagle pancreas , showing the diversity of the islets in these two segments of the pancreas — corresponding to the head and tail of the human pancreas, respectively.
Below the excellent airbrush work by an artist from the Audiovisual Services of Leiden University, for our poster ‘Distribution of insulin, glucagon, pancreatic polypeptide and somatostatin in the canine pancreas’.

I created the original 1988 poster ‘Quantification of canine pancreatic islet isolation’ on March 9-10, 1988 using MacDraw on a personal Macintosh ED , using the bold Chicago font, and the Imagewriter-II matrix printer , except for the header provided by my colleagues , which was together with my colleagues’ posters designed and produced as usual at the time on rigid foam boards by the Audiovisual Services department of the Leiden University. Also the original photo print was pinned on the mounted poster (thus, not digitally processed at the time).
This digital remastered 2025 edition (1MEMO_20251206_1) was produced in LibreOffice Vanilla with conversion of the original 1988 MacDraw file, correcting the disrupted formatting, replacing the non-available Chicago font with the font ‘Chalkboard’ , adding a scan of the Figure 1 photo print , plus a recent photo taken of the original poster board, archived, header. Figure 1 uses a copy of that original photo print , with the addition now, in this remastered edition, of arrows helping identifying the islets , and addition of the text ‘(arrrows)’ in the figure legend.

Other papers presented at the 1st IPITA congress from our research group, on pancreas transplantation, are listed below (9,10,11,12).

David Sutherland

Several other centers reported at this 1st IPITA on succesful islet autotransplantation in large animals, including a series of presentations on canine islet transplantation from David Sutherland’s islet research group in Minneapolis.

We had already started collaborating, by the end of 1987, with David Sutherland and Ms. Jane Field , the head of Sutherland’s islet research laboratory in Minneapolis , planning Jane’s working visit for June 1988 in our Leiden Islet Laboratory, in order to help me set up in Leiden, the current Minneapolis procedure for canine islet isolation and transplantation (13,14).

The next year, Sep-Oct 1989, I worked again with Jane Field and David Sutherland, now in Minneapolis (14,15,16) in the islet research laboratory mostly, and also observing David Sutherland at work during clinical segmental pancreas autotransplantaton, where I made this portrait photograph (1MEMO_20251206_06).

David Sutherland, the ‘father’ of pancreas and islet transplantation, passed away March 25, 2025.

David jokingly called the pancreas the “Big Dirty Island”.

Notes

* The founding meeting of the IPITA was being held actually at the 4th IPITA meeting — the 4th International Congress on Pancreas and Islet Transplantation — June 27–30, 1993 in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) hosted by Dr. Reinout van Schilfgaarde.

1. Leiden Islet Laboratory History • 20240803 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/08/03/leiden-islet-laboratory-history-20240803/

2. Cradle of Islet Transplants • 20240829 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com • https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/08/29/cradle-of-islet-transplants-20240829/

3. Van der Burg MPM, Gooszen HG, Terpstra JL, Frölich M, Scherft JP, Lemkes HHPJ. Quantification of canine pancreatic islet isolation. First International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, Stockholm (Sweden) March 27–29, 1988. (Poster). Remastered 2025 poster edition : 1MEMO_20251206_01.

4. Van der Burg MPM, Gooszen HG, Terpstra JL, Frölich M, Scherft JP, Lemkes HHPJ. Quantification of canine pancreatic islet isolation (Abstract). Diabetes 1989; 38 (Suppl. 1): 274. (Abstract). View/Download file 1MEMO_20251206_04

5. Quantitative And Qualitative Standards For Islet Isolation Assessment In Man And Large Mammals. International Workshop during the 2nd Congress on Pancreas and Islet Transplantation. Camillo Ricordi. Archive Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media • 1MEMO_20251206_07 • TakeNode 3d90aa54-9fe1-4b29-8161-aa6c4fda6652 • View/Download file 1MEMO_20251206_07

6. Ricordi C, Gray DW, Hering BJ, Kaufman DB, Warnock GL, Kneteman NM, Lake SP, London NJ, Socci C, Alejandro R, et al. Islet isolation assessment in man and large animals. Acta Diabetol Lat. 1990 Jul-Sep;27(3):185-95. doi: 10.1007/BF02581331. PMID: 2075782.

7. Frölich M, Van der Burg MPM, Gooszen HG, Jansen JBMJ, Lamers CBHW. Distribution of insulin, glucagon, pancreatic polypeptide and somatostatin in the canine pancreas. First International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, Stockholm, Sweden, March 27–29 1988. (Poster).

8. Frölich M, Van der Burg MPM, Gooszen HG, Jansen JBMJ, Lamers CBHW. Distribution of insulin, glucagon, pancreatic polypeptide, and somatostatin in canine pancreas (Abstract). Diabetes 1989; 38 (Suppl. 1): 257. (Abstract) . Download file 1MEMO_20251206_04

9. Gooszen HG, Van der Burg MPM, Guicherit OR, Jansen JBMJ, Van Schilfgaarde R, Lamers CBHW, Frölich M. A crossover study on the effects of duct obliteration, coeliac denervation and autotransplantation on glucose and meal stimulated insulin, glucagon and pancreatic polypeptide levels. First International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, Stockholm, Sweden, March 27–29 1988. (Talk).

10. Gooszen HG, van der Burg MP, Guicherit OR, Jansen JB, Frölich M, van Schilfgaarde R, Lamers CB. Crossover study on effects of duct obliteration, celiac denervation, and autotransplantation on glucose- and meal-stimulated insulin, glucagon, and pancreatic polypeptide levels. Diabetes. 1989 Jan;38 Suppl 1:114-6. doi: 10.2337/diab.38.1.s114. PMID: 2642831. (Proceedings paper).

11. Gooszen HG, Van Schilfgaarde R, Van der Burg MPM, van Lawick van Pabst WP, Frölich M, Bosman FT. Quantitative assessment of changes in insulin secretion after canine ductobliterated segmental pancreatic autotransplantation in relation to the histological background. First International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, Stockholm, Sweden, March 27–29 1988. (Poster).

12. Gooszen HG, Van Schilfgaarde R, Van der Burg MPM, Van Lawick van Pabst WP, Frölich M, Bosman FT. Quantitative assessment of changes in insulin secretion after canine duct-obliterated segmental-pancreas autotransplantation in relation to histological background (Abstract). Diabetes 1989; 38 (Suppl. 1): 255–256. (Abstract). View/Download file 1MEMO_20251206_05

13. December 1987 , we started planning together Jane Field’s working visit thanks to our nephrologist Fokko van der Woude who after post doc research in Minneapolis had just started as an associate Professor at the Leiden University , working in our Leiden University Hospital (LUMC). Fokko J. van der Woude (1953-2006) passed away too soon after a long battle with cancer.

14. Pancreas & Islet Transplantation Program • 20240912 • Michel van der Burg • michelvanderburg•com • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/09/12/pancreas-islet-transplantation-program-20240912/

15. Visiting research fellow in the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota (DER Sutherland, MD PhD) & Department of Cell Biology (OD Hegre, MD PhD), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Minnesota (USA) , September 14-October 6 1989

16. 2nd International Congress on Pancreatic and Islet Transplantation, and 4th International Symposium on Organ Procurement and Preservation. Minneapolis (USA) September 17–22, 1989.

Citation info : Quantification of canine pancreatic islet isolation • 1st IPITA 1988 • Michel van der Burg • Miracles.Media • @1MEMO 20251206 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2025/12/06