The Integrated Islet Distribution Program answers the call for improved human islet phenotyping and reporting of human islet characteristics in research articles

Excerpt

To the Editor: In recent years, the need for enhanced rigour, reproducibility and transparency in biomedical research has been the topic of much discussion. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) led the way in this conversation with issuance of the NIH guidelines for rigour and reproducibility, which have been mandated for all grant applications since 2016 [1, 2]. In support of this initiative, a recent review article by Hart and Powers, published in Diabetologia [3], with an accompanying editorial co-published in Diabetes and Diabetologia by Poitout et al [4, 5] highlighted the need for improved standardisation of human islet data and its reporting in scientific publications. Diabetologia and Diabetes have initiated a checklist that is now required at the time of manuscript submission. At a minimum, the source and isolation centre, a unique identifier number for each human islet preparation, and key demographic/clinical data must be included. Although not mandatory, the editorial encourages the inclusion of additional data, such as the cause of donor death, measurements of islet purity and viability, functional measures, ischaemia duration and culture time. …