Members

Dr. Ray Rajotte

Professor of Surgery and Medicine
University of Alberta

Dr. Rajotte is a Biomedical Engineer with a keen interest in diabetes and cryopreservation ofislet cells. After completing his PhD, he did post-doctoral training in the United States with Peter Mazur in Oak Ridge, Paul Lacy and David Scharp in St. Louis, Orion Hegre in Minnesota, and Yoko Mullen and Joshua Brown at UCLA. In 1979, he returned to Edmonton to join the Department of Surgery and Medicine at the University of Alberta and in 1982 he started the Islet Transplantation Group.

Dr. Rajotte's current appointments at the University of Alberta in Edmonton include Director of the Surgical-Medical Research Institute, Director of the Islet Transplantation Group, Professor of Surgery and Medicine, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Rajotte was also the Founding Scientific Director of the Alberta Diabetes Institute from 2004-2007.

Dr. Rajotte's basic research, which he started in 1972, was taken to the bedside in 1989 when Canada's first islet transplantation was carried out in Edmonton. Using a combination of fresh and cryopreserved islets, their third patient became insulin independent for 2.5 years. In 2000, using a steroid-free protocol in brittle diabetic patients, the Edmonton Islet Transplantation Group was able to produce insulin independence in 100% of their patients when 11,000 islets/kg body weight were transplanted - this is the best success worldwide and has set the standard for islet transplantation.

The major limiting step in offering islet transplantation to more diabetic patients is the supply of islets, which is limited because in Canada there are on average only 400 pancreases available per year for islet isolations. To resolve the islet supply problem, Dr. Rajotte and his colleague Dr. Korbutt have developed a new process to isolate a large number of islets from the neonatal pig pancreas. In February 2006, they showed, with Dr. Larsen from Emory, for the first time that by using these neonatal pig islets they could cure a diabetic monkey long-term; moving them one step closer to using these pig islets in humans.

In addition to his research, Dr. Rajotte took the lead in the building of a world class diabetes institute at the University of Alberta; the Alberta Diabetes Institute officially opened November 15, 2007. The Alberta Diabetes Institute will cover all aspects of diabetes research including exercise physiology, nutrition, population health, ß cell signalling, immunology of diabetes, basic islet transplantation, GMP facility to process stem cell/xenograft, and tissue engineering. When the Alberta Diabetes Institute is completed, it will house approximately 35 scientists with over 500 support staff (graduate students, research fellows, etc.). The mission of the Alberta Diabetes Institute is to "lead the world in finding a cure."

Dr. Rajotte has over 250 peer-reviewed published papers and is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in the field of islet transplantation. Dr. Rajotte has supervised or co-supervised many graduate students, several of whom now hold academic appointments at the University of Alberta and other universities across Canada. Dr. Rajotte also sits on many grant agencies and reviews papers for many scientific journals. Dr. Rajotte has received numerous honours and awards during his career; most recently he was awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2006 and in 2007 he was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.

CIHR and its predecessor the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC), has funded Dr. Rajotte's research for over 25 years with Dr. Rajotte recently receiving a renewal from CIHR until 2011.