Meet CellTrans

José Oberholzer, MD, MHCM, FACS, founded CellTrans Inc. and is the President of the company. Dr. Oberholzer is Department Chair of Visceral and Transplant Surgery at University Hospital, Zurich and an Adjunct Professor of Surgery and Endocrinology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Raised in Switzerland, he earned his medical degree from the University of Zurich Medical School and completed his residency at the University of Geneva, where he later led the Human Islet Transplantation Program. He was a fellow in hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery and transplantation at the University of Alberta in Canada. He also earned a master’s degree in healthcare management from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has performed over 1,000 transplant-related surgeries and is an expert in liver, kidney, pancreas and small bowel transplants, as well as organ transplants in patients with diabetes. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Oberholzer specializes in islet transplantation and parathyroid transplantation, as well as vascular access for hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis catheter placements. He practices minimal invasive, robotic assisted surgery, including robotic kidney and pancreas transplantation, living donor nephrectomy, adrenalectomy, liver and pancreas surgery and hernia surgery. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Surgical Association, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the American Medical Association, and the American Diabetes Association, and a founding member of the Clinical Robotic Surgery Association. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences. Additionally, he is the founder and coordinator of the Chicago Diabetes Project, an international research collaboration for a functional cure for diabetes. His overall focus is to remove barriers to transplantation and improve access for those in need.

James McGarrigle, Ph.D., serves as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at CellTrans Inc. Oversees the management of CellTrans operational processes, including all areas of manufacture of human islet cells within a cGMP manufacture facility to ensure the final cell product is produced to the highest acceptable standards of functionality and quality. Identifies continuous process improvement areas to develop scalable, cGMP-compliant processes for manufacturing with a high degree of effectiveness and efficiency. Provides strategic direction, tactical oversight and technical expertise for all activities within the product/process development and manufacturing areas. Coordinates and develops interactions between manufacturing and clinical personnel.
Prior to CellTrans, Dr. McGarrigle served as Assistant Research Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in the Department of Surgery, evaluating various cell therapies and biomaterial products to combat diabetes, as well as research projects aimed to improve and better assess human islet manufacture and transplantation. Earned bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry and a PhD in Microbiology, both from the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Giovanna La Monica, PhD serves as Director of Quality at CellTrans Inc., to ensure that all external and internal requirements are met for the manufacturing of isolated pancreatic islets for transplantation and to assure the quality of CellTrans operations and services. Coordinates a Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) facility for the production of Human Islets for Transplantation in type 1 diabetic patients. In charge of assuring consistent quality of production by developing and enforcing good manufacturing practice (cGMP); validating processes; managing staff and supporting and participating in all the internal/external audits. Dr. La Monica earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Naples (Italy), with experience in oncology, immunology, molecular and cell biology background, gained in DBBM (Department of Biochemistry and Medical Biotechnology, University “Federico II”, Naples, Italy) and Northwestern University and UIC in Chicago in the last 15 years.

Dr. Peter Rios obtained his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University and BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia (UVA). His PhD dissertation focused on islet encapsulation for diabetes and ovarian follicle encapsulation for fertility preservation. Currently, he serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of CellTrans, Inc. In this role, he is responsible for planning, coordinating, and managing the activities of multiple bioengineering and biomaterials-focused projects in the Research Department. He undertakes short-term and long-term planning and supervision of preclinical and clinical-focused projects aimed towards sustainable treatments for diabetes. Prior to CellTrans, he served as a Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Surgery, where he led several rodent and non-human primate research studies to evaluate biomaterial products to treat diabetes. Prior to his graduate studies, he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington DC on bioterrorism projects for the Department of Homeland Security. Outside of his professional work, he is an active Lifetime member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) for over 10 years, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity in STEM, and has served in numerous leadership roles including on SHPE's National Board of Directors.

Ying Liu, Ph.D., is the Chief Technology Officer of the company. Dr. Liu holds the Dr. Satish C. & Asha Saxena Chair Professorship and serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Additionally, she is affiliated with the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UIC.

Ying Liu’s academic journey is marked by interdisciplinary training. She received her B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China in 2001, followed by her Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2007. Notably, she was offered a tenure-track assistant professor position by UIC in 2006 before her graduation from Princeton University. Before officially joining UIC in 2008, Ying Liu deferred her position and spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago in the Department of Chemistry and James Frank Institute. Throughout her career, Dr. Liu has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including Howard Carthoren Phillips Graduate Fellowship of Princeton University (2003), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2014), UIC Researcher and Scholar of the Year Award (2016), UIC Graduate Mentor Award (2017), and Faculty and Student Team Research Award at NSF’s ChemMatCARS (2019). Dr. Liu has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, authored two book chapters, and held the inventorship for 10 patents and published PCTs.

Dr. Liu’s expertise lies in the fields of soft-matter physics and biophysics. Specifically, through her in-depth understanding of molecular interfacial packing, interactions, reactions, and self-assembly, Dr. Liu takes the lead in developing knowledge-based designs for bioreactors and biomaterials, with a particular focus on drug and therapeutic cell delivery. Within the Liu research group, several scalable, continuous, and self-assembling processes have been developed to enable the high-throughput screening and mass production of well-controlled nano- and microparticles, meticulously engineered for precise targeting delivery and sustained release of small molecular compounds, macromolecules, and therapeutic cells.

Ira Joshi serves as a Senior Research and Manufacturing Associate at CellTrans,Inc. In her role, Ira is involved in testing cells and biomaterials using both in vitro and in vivo assays for preclinical studies. She is also a member of the human islet isolation team. Ira earned her MS in Biotechnology from Rush University, Chicago, and also has an integrated Master's and Bachelor's of Science degree in Biotechnology from Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, India. Prior to working at Celltrans, Ira worked as Research Specialist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also has research experience in India at a biofertilizer, bioremediation and wastewater treatment-based company.

Sofia Ghani is the Quality Manager at CellTrans, Inc. Sofia supports the development and implementation of CellTrans quality practices to assure compliance of the human pancreatic islet manufacture process with internal and external regulations. She coordinates, together with the Director of Quality, all QA/QC activities at CellTrans Inc., works to develop and validate quality processes, establish product specifications and quality attributes, and develops operation and performance qualifications. She is also involved in the quality control testing of human pancreatic islets for transplantation and in the development of the staff training program for Quality Control testing and the Quality System. Sofia has a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

David Cook is a Manufacturing Associate at CellTrans. He is a member of the human pancreatic islet isolation team and assists in the daily management of the cGMP Islet Isolation Facility. David has a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Daisy Lopez is a Research and Manufacturing Associate at Cell Trans, Inc. In her role, she is responsible for performing experimental research as well as being part of the human Islet isolation team. Previously she worked as a Medical Laboratory Technician, at UIC and Loyola for 3 years, and as a Medical Assistant and Health Educator for a non-profit organization in Chicago. Daisy has a BA in Health Sciences from Rush University, and Graduate education in Biomedical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Hafsa Nasir is the Research Associate and Quality Control Specialist at CellTrans, Inc. Hafsa is involved in multiple research Projects Involving testing of cells and biomaterials. She is also involved in quality control testing of human pancreatic islets for transplantation. Previously she was part of internship programs during her academic years. Hafsa has a BS in Biological Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She speaks three languages and halfway learning a fourth one.

Quetzalli Rodriguez is an undergraduate research assistant at CellTrans. She is currently a third year at the University of Illinois at Chicago majoring in Biomedical Engineering. She is also following a pre-med track with the goal of applying to medical school in the near future. Her current interests in medicine include surgery and internal medicine.

In her free time, Quetzalli enjoys reading medical memoirs and spending time with her family.

Sharon Roberts is an Undergraduate Research Assistant at CellTrans. She is a member of the research lab at the Incubator Laboratory Facility. Sharon is pursuing a major in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Leadership Business from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She will be then pursuing a Master's in Biomedical Engineering next year at Yonsei University Seoul, South Korea where she further her career in regenerative cell therapy.

Fun Fact: Sharon collects antiques that included novels and music boxes dating back to the 1800s.

Yi Li serves as a Biostatistician at CellTrans. In her role, Yi is involved in research design, statistical analysis planning and clinical data management. Yi has nearly 15 years of experience working in the field of health sciences, research methodology and data analytics.

Jenny Cook is the Chief Financial Officer and manages finance and administration for CellTrans. In her role, Jenny is involved in grant administration, contracting, purchasing, human resources, budgeting, and financial reporting. Prior to working at CellTrans, Jenny was Dr. Oberholzer’s executive assistant and administrative support for the transplant program at UIC. Before joining the team at UIC, she gained more than 20 years of experience in corporate, nonprofit and university accounting.

Dr. Wang is the Vice President of CellTrans. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia and an expert in the field of beta-cell physiology and islet transplantation with nearly 20 years of research experience. With his medical training background, Dr. Wang’s research interest is to investigate and solve clinically relevant problems with novel emerging technologies. Dr. Wang has developed a set of novel microfluidic biochips (Islet-On-Chip) to study islet physiology that are applied in human islet transplantation and beta-cell biology. His research represents one of only a handful of laboratories that have applied microfluidic technology in diabetes research and treatment with more than 20 peer-reviewed research publications, technical reports, reviews, and book chapter in this area since 2009, including Lab-On-Chip, Analytical Chemistry, Nature Immunology, Nature Biomaterials, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Cell Metabolism, and Diabetes. He is also developing additional islet devices such as microfluidic array for high-content and high-resolution imaging, pumpless microfluidic perifusion, integrated optical imaging with smartphone, and beta-cell and alpha-cell separation. His research has been supported by NIH, JDRF, Pfizer, Merck and Gift of Hope. Dr. Wang also has extensive experience in islet isolation and transplantation including human, non-human primate, and rodent animal models.