Camillo Ricordi, M.D. is the Stacy Joy Goodman Professor of Surgery, Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Microbiology and Immunology, and serves as Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute. At the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Ricordi also serves as Chief of the Division of Cellular Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Director of the Diabetes Research Institute Cell Transplant Center and Responsible Head of the cGMP Human Cell Processing Facility, an NIH funded cGMP facility that has been providing Human Cell Products for research and clinical applications at UM, in Florida and across state barriers since 1993. Dr. Ricordi has also served as Co-Director of the Executive Office of Research Leadership (2001-2003) and as Senior Associate Dean for Research (2003-2006) at the UM Miller School of Medicine. See interview with Dr. Ricordi here.
Dr. Ricordi completed high school with a perfect score and all graduate and post-graduate studies with the highest scores and honors in Milan, Italy. After medical school, board certification and military service as a medical officer in the Italian air force, he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he received an NIH Research Trainee Award (1986-1988) working with islet cell transplant pioneer Prof. Paul E. Lacy. Dr. Ricordi subsequently spent four years (1989-1993) with transplant pioneer, Prof. Thomas E. Starzl, as Director of Cellular Transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute. Since 1993, he has been at the University of Miami, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine (UM).
Acknowledged by his peers as one of the world’s leading scientists in diabetes cure focused research and cell transplantation, Dr. Ricordi is well-known for inventing the machine that made it possible to isolate large numbers of islet cells (insulin-producing cells) from the human pancreas and for performing the first series of successful clinical islet transplants that reversed diabetes after implantation of donor purified islets into the liver of recipients with diabetes. The procedure is now used by laboratories performing clinical islet transplants worldwide. Dr. Ricordi has also developed highly innovative strategies in an attempt to transplant cells and organs without the continuous requirement for anti-rejection drugs. He coordinated the University of Miami Stem Cell, Cellular Therapies and Tissue Engineering Initiative, which resulted in the establishment of the W. H. Coulter Center for Translational Research at the University of Miami.
Dr. Ricordi was president of the Cell Transplant Society (1992-94), co-founder and chairman of the National Diabetes Research Coalition (Chairman 1997), co-founder and president (1999-2001) of the International Association for Pancreas and Islet Transplantation (IPITA), and a member of the council of The Transplantation Society (2002-2008). He also served on the council of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (2000-2002), on the National Institutes of Health (NIH-NIAID) Expert Panel on clinical approaches for tolerance induction, on the FDA Biologic Response Modifiers Advisory Committee, on the NIH/NCRR Islet Cell Resources (ICRs) Executive Committee, on the NIH-NIDDK Strategic Planning Committee and on the NIH-NIAID Expert Panel on Transplantation Research. He is currently serving as Chairperson of the Clinical Islet Transplant Consortium (NIDDK-NIAID). He has also been serving on several NIH study sections, including Surgery, Anesthesia and Trauma, the General Clinical Research Centers, Small Business Innovative Research, the Immune Tolerance Network, in addition to serving as a reviewer for several international funding agencies.
Dr. Ricordi has received numerous honors and awards, including the 2001 Nessim Habif World Prize in Surgery (University of Geneva) for developing a technology that significantly contributed to the advancement of a surgical field. He was awarded the 2002 Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award and delivered the Lilly Lecture at the 2002 Congress of the American Diabetes Association. He also delivered the opening plenary (Galileo Lecture) at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Congress in Rome (2008). In 2009 Dr. Ricordi was Knighted by the President of the Republic of Italy in the highest Order of the Republic (the Order of Merit) with the Knighthood decoration of Cavaliere Ufficiale and in 2010 he was only surgeon and one of the few ever inducted into the Association of American Physicians (AAP). In 2011 Dr. Ricordi received the D-Life’s Top Award for making the biggest difference in diabetes in 2012 (international web-based public vote competition).
Dr. Ricordi is currently serving on the editorial boards of Cell Transplantation (Editor-in-Chief), American Journal of Transplantation (Associate Editor), and Transplantation. He also served on the boards of Transplantation Proceedings, Tissue Engineering, and Graft (Editor-in-Chief, 1998-2002).
An Adjunct Professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University, and at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, he also serves as President of ISMETT (Mediterranean Institute of Transplantation and Advanced Therapies) in Palermo, Sicily and on the board of the DRI at H. San Raffaele Institute in Milan, Italy.
Dr. Ricordi serves as President of the Cure Focus Research Alliance and Chaiman of the Diabetes Research Institute Federation, coordinating and promoting cure focused research at over 24 leading institutions worldwide, while further developing the telescience platform technology to eliminate geographic barriers to scientific collaboration. These initiatives now allow scientists and project teams from around the world to synergize efforts and work together like if they are in the same physical space.
Dr. Ricordi has authored over 600 scientific publications, and as an inventor, he has been awarded 11 patents.