James Shapiro is Professor of Surgery, Medicine and Surgical Oncology, and Director of the Clinical Islet and Living Donor Liver Transplant Programs at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He has a busy clinical surgical practice in hepatobiliary and pancreatic oncology, and in liver, pancreas and kidney transplantation. He directs one of the leading clinical islet transplant programs worldwide with 152 patients treated, and was the lead investigator of the team that developed the "Edmonton Protocol" - the first trial to achieve consistent 100% insulin independence in islet-alone transplant recipients with Type 1 diabetes (NEJM 2000). He led an international multicentre trial to replicate these findings in 9 international centres (NEJM 2006).
He has an active experimental laboratory working on improving long term survival of transplanted islets, and in immunomodulation of transplanted tissues. He is Principle Investigator on several NIH and JDRF-funded clinical trials, including clinical testing of costimulation blockade in islet transplantation.
James is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Hunterian Medal from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Paul E. Lacy Gold Medal, the Gold Medal in Surgery from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the Governor General's Gold Medal, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and most recently was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.