After medical school (University of Milan, Italy) Camillo Ricordi, M.D., received an NIH Research Trainee Award at Washington University in St. Louis (1986-1988), and spent four years (1989-1993) as Director of Cellular Transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute.
Since 1993, he has been at the University of Miami, where he holds the Stacy Joy Goodman Chair. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery, Biomedical Engineering, Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Ricordi is also Chief of the Division of Cellular Transplantation, Department of Surgery and the Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Acknowledged by his peers as one of the world's leading scientists in cell transplantation, Dr. Ricordi is well-known for developing the Automated Method for Islet Isolation (the "Ricordi Chamber"). The procedure made it possible to isolate large numbers of pancreatic islets and is now used by laboratories performing clinical islet transplants worldwide.
Dr. Ricordi led the team that performed the first series of successful clinical islet allografts in 1990 and performed the first clinical trials of islet-donor bone marrow cell infusions and more recently islet-donor CD34+ cell infusions with the objective to treat patients with Type 1 diabetes without the continuous requirement for anti-rejection drugs. His research objective is to develop a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.
Dr. Ricordi was founder and president of the Cell Transplant Society (1992-94), co-founder of the National Diabetes Research Coalition (Chairman 1997) and president of the International Association for Pancreas and Islet Transplantation (1999-2001; IPITA).
Currently a member of the council of the International Transplantation Society, he also served on the council of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (2000-2002), on the National Institutes of Health (NIH-NIAID) Expert Panel on clinical approaches for tolerance induction, and on the FDA Biologic Response Modifiers Advisory Committee. Dr. Ricordi is also serving on the NIH/NCRR Islet Cell Resources (ICRs) Executive Committee, as Chairperson of the Clinical Islet Transplant Consortium (NIDDK-NIAID) and as President of the Board of the Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Therapies (ISMETT, Palermo, Italy).
Dr. Ricordi has received numerous honors and awards, including the 2001 Nessim Habif World Prize of Surgery (University of Geneva) for developing a machine and a technology that significantly contributed to the advancement of a surgical field. He was also awarded the 2002 Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award and delivered the Lilly Lecture at the 2002 Congress of the American Diabetes Association.
He has been serving on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Cell Transplantation (Editor-in-Chief), American Journal of Transplantation (Associate Editor), Transplantation, Transplantation Proceedings, and Tissue Engineering. Dr. Ricordi has authored more than 500 scientific publications. As inventor, he was awarded nine patents.