Who We Are
DRIFCan was established in 2005 to fund the Edmonton Protocol. Today, DRIFCan continues to support Dr. Shapiro' team at the Alberta Diabetes Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We know that donors supporting diabetes research want their contributions to go directly to cure-based research. That’s why DRIFCan donates 90% of all funds raised to Dr. Shapiro and his team.
About Dr. James Shapiro
James Shapiro was born in Leeds, England, the son of a family doctor. He obtained his MD at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and trained in surgery at the University of Bristol in the UK. James came to Canada in 1993 and completed a surgical fellowship in hepatobiliary oncology and multiorgan transplantation. He pursued further surgical fellowships at the University of Maryland, in Vancouver, and in Kyoto, Japan.
He developed a longstanding interest in liver and islet cell transplantation as a medical student—and has been working in this field for an extraordinary 40 years. He has been on faculty at the University of Alberta since 1998, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Transplantation Surgery and Regenerative Medicine and serves as Director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program (CITP). He was the lead investigator on the famous “Edmonton Protocol” islet transplant treatment for diabetes, and over 770 islet transplants have now been completed locally. This protocol has been replicated in more than 1,000 patients at over 40 international institutions.
He was the first in Canada to initiate clinical trials with human stem-cell–derived, insulin-secreting cells, and he most recently carried out the first-in-human CRISPR gene–edited stem cell islet progenitor transplant, in collaboration with ViaCyte Inc. and CRISPR Therapeutics Inc.
His current translational research laboratory is focused on generating autologous iPS-derived islets for transplantation into patients with diabetes—without the need for immunosuppression. His team and collaborators are working on scale-up and manufacturing efficiencies to make this approach feasible and widely accessible.
He is Director of the Liver Transplant, Living Donor Liver Transplant, and Islet Transplant Programs at the University of Alberta. He has written 38 book chapters and published more than 440 papers in high-impact journals, including The Lancet and Nature. His H-index is 82.
His many awards include the Hunterian Medal from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Gold Medals from the Governor General of Canada and from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and he is an internationally acclaimed academic leader in the field of transplantation surgery.
