Meet CellTrans

José Oberholzer, MD, MHCM, FACS, founded CellTrans Inc. and is the President of the company. Dr. Oberholzer is a professor of surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia 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 serves as Chief Operating Officer of CellTrans Inc., where he is responsible for developing, directing and coordinating the cGMP Islet Isolation Facility. McGarrigle earned his bachelor’s degree and PhD in Microbiology from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Prior to joining CellTrans, McGarrigle held the position of Assistant Research Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he conducted several research projects aimed to improve and better assess human islet isolation and transplantation.

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 to 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 10 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.

Benjamin McCracken is the cGMP Cell Isolation Laboratory Manager and a Quality Control Specialist at CellTrans, where he is responsible for the daily management of the cGMP Islet Isolation Facility. He is also a member of the human pancreatic islet isolation team and performs quality control testing of pancreatic islets for transplantation. Prior to working at CellTrans, Ben worked as a Research Specialist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a focus on histology. Ben has an MS in Biology from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a BS/BA from the University of Illinois.

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 a Senior Research and Quality Control Specialist at CellTrans, Inc. She is a member of the research team, where she works on in vitro and in vivo studies to test cell and biomaterial products. She is also involved in the quality control testing of human pancreatic islets for transplantation. Previously she worked as a Research Specialist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 2 years. Sofia holds a BS in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Doug Isa serves as a Senior Research and Quality Control Specialist at CellTrans, Inc. In his role, Doug is involved in the testing of cells and biomaterials for multiple research projects. He is also involved in quality control testing of human pancreatic islets for transplantation. Previously he worked as a Research Specialist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 2 years. Doug has a BA in Chemistry 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.

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.