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Norma Sue Kenyon, Ph.D., is the Martin Kleiman Professor of Surgery, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Associate Director of Research and Program Development and Director of Pre-Clinical Islet Transplantation at the Diabetes Research Institute.
Dr. Kenyon has concentrated her work in the area of transplant immunology, identifying the types of cells in the immune system that either enhance or inhibit the rejection process, and translating these findings into new therapies for patients. An established leader in islet transplantation in pre-clinical models, the results of her work have sparked great enthusiasm within the scientific community, and have been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals.
She and her team have focused on ways to transplant islets without the need for anti-rejection drugs (tolerance), and have conducted numerous studies using bone marrow and other methods to help recipients tolerate transplanted tissue. In addition, the team is now looking at agents that limit early loss of islets post-transplant, thereby decreasing the numbers of islets required to achieve insulin independence.
This aspect is especially important for clinical application of tolerance protocols in light of the need to utilize islets and bone marrow cells from one donor and be able to reproducibly attain insulin independence (current clinical strategies generally require the use of islets from more than one donor).
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