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HIRN 2025 Annual Meeting

The HIRN 10th Anniversary Meeting (“Changing the Course in Type 1 Diabetes”) will be hosted at the Natcher Conference Center on the NIH Campus in Bethesda, MD on January 13^th – 14, 2025.

Presentations will reflect on the state of the diabetes research field, and the future direction of T1D research. As such, the 2025 HIRN Annual Meeting will be public and open to all individuals, including past and present HIRN members, and anyone interested in the future of diabetes research.

Learn More & Register for the Meeting

NIH NIDDK Funding Opportunities

HIRN CBDS Discovery of Early Type 1 Diabetes Disease Processes in the Human Pancreas (RFA-DK-23-007)
NIH Directors Pioneer Award Program (RFA-RM-24-002)
NIH Directors New Innovator Award Program (RFA-RM-24-003)
NIH Directors Transformative Research Awards (RFA-RM-24-004)

2023 Gateway Award Recipients

Please join us in Congratulating the newly funded 2023 NIH NIDDK HIRN Gateway Investigators. This initiative is designed to support a robust pipeline of innovative projects and talented new investigators in T1D research.

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HIRN 2023 Trainee PRESENTATION Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following three trainees who received an award at the 2023 Annual Investigator Meeting for their oral presentation. Award recipients were selected solely based on evaluations by HIRN members on their presentations at the Annual Investigator Meeting.

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HIRN 2023 Trainee POSTER Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following seven trainees who received an award at the 2023 Annual Investigator Meeting for their scientific poster. Award recipients were selected solely based on evaluations by HIRN members on their presentations at the Annual Investigator Meeting.

Learn about the award recipients

Year 5 & Year 6 Executive Summary Report

The HIRN Year 5 & Year 6 Executive Summary Report is now available online! The report reflects significant HIRN breakthroughs, developments and advancements across the entire network. This 2-year report reflects activity from October 2018 through September 2020.

Cover Image: Dan Huh, Univ. Pennsylvania, CHIB Stanger UG3. A cross-sectional view of a vascularized three-dimensional biomimetic device visualized by scanning electron microscopy. A micro-capillary is seen in cross-section along with a functional pericyte (upper right) and surrounding matrix.

Learn more about all of our HIRN New Investigators at

The Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) was established in 2014 to help organize and support collaborative research related to the loss of functional beta cell mass in Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). The project consists of five independent research initiatives.

Research Resources

Latest News

HIRN 2025 Annual Meeting: January 13 – 14, 2025

The HIRN 10th Anniversary Meeting will be hosted at the Natcher Conference Center on the NIH Campus in Bethesda, MD on January 13th – 14, 2025. Presentations will reflect on…

HIRN Webinar: Emerging role for tissue-specific extracellular vesicles in disease diagnosis: implications for Type 1 Diabetes

Click HERE to view YouTube recording of the webinar. Thursday, April 23, 2024 (1:00 pm Eastern / 10:00 am Pacific) Presentations by: Saumya Das, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital…

HIRN. Microfluidic Devices Webinar 2024 Feb

HIRN Webinar: “Microfluidic Models for Types 1 Diabetes on a Chip”

Click HERE to view YouTube recording of the webinar. Tuesday, February 13, 2024 (1:00 pm Eastern / 10:00 am Pacific) Presentation by: Ashutosh Agarwal, PhD, University of…

Independent Research Initiatives

Consortium on Beta Cell Death and Survival

CBDS is using human pancreatic tissues to discover mechanisms of cellular stress or dysfunction that may contribute to the development of autoimmunity in at-risk individuals, to identify specific biomarkers of the asymptomatic phase of T1D, and to develop innovative strategies to stop beta cell destruction early in the disease process.

Consortium on Human Islet Biomimetics

CHIB is combining advances in beta cell biology and stem cell biology with tissue engineering technologies to develop microdevices that support functional human islets.

Consortium on Modeling Autoimmune Interactions

The CMAI is developing innovative approaches to model basic aspects of human T1D immunobiology using novel in vivo and in vitro platforms.

Consortium on Targeting and Regeneration

CTAR is investigating methods to increase or maintain functional beta cell mass in T1D through targeted manipulation of islet plasticity or engineered protection of beta cells from immune-mediated destruction.

Human Pancreas Analysis Consortium

The Human Pancreas Analysis Consortium (HPAC) is investigating the physical and functional organization of the human islet tissue environment, the cell-cell relationships within the pancreatic tissue ecosystem, and the contributions of non-endocrine components (acinar, ductal, vascular, perivascular, neuronal, lymphatic, immune) to islet cell function and dysfunction.

Pancreas Knowledgebase Program

PanKbase is a centralized resource of the human pancreas for diabetes research that will provide access to deeply curated high-quality datasets, knowledge in computable forms, and advanced data science tools and workflows; and enable open and reproducible multidisciplinary collaboration toward accelerating biomarker and therapeutic target development.

HIRN-OPP

Opportunity Pool Projects

The Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) was established In 2014 to help organize and support collaborative research related to the loss of functional beta cell mass in Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). The project consists of five independent research initiatives.

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