Loop and Learn had the great honor to host a presentation by Dr.  Bart Roep, the Chan SoonShiong Shapiro Distinguished Chair in Diabetes, within the Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute at City of Hope. He serves as project director for The Wanek Family Project for Type 1 Diabetes at City of Hope, an ambitious initiative committed to developing a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Roep is an internationally recognized authority and key opinion leader on multiple aspects of type 1 diabetes, with particular interest in understanding the cause of the disease and translating this knowledge into immune intervention strategies (including gene therapy, stem cell therapy and bone marrow transplantation) with the ultimate goal to cure type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Roep’s mission is to cure people with type 1 diabetes. His quest of over 25 years has been honored with multiple scientific and medical awards, including the most prestigious national and European awards in diabetes such as the Minkowski Prize for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the field of diabetes mellitus.

Highlights of Dr. Roep's career include discovering which targets in insulinproducing beta cells are recognized by selfdestructive T cells, which can be translated into immunebased therapies targeting this mechanism. He was also the first to discover immune system factors that predict clinical outcomes of islet transplantation for type 1 diabetic islet recipients, setting the stage for personalized medicine.

Dr. Roep received his medical and doctorate degrees at Leiden University in the Netherlands and his Master of Science degree at University of Amsterdam.

“I am very monogamous. I only work on Type 1 diabetes" Bart Roep