Alavi, Abass 
Our Team
| Ali Naji, MD, PhD | Program Director |
| Clyde F Barker, MD | Co-Director / PI, Human Transplantation |
| Franz M Matschinsky,MD | Co-Director / Co-PI, Islet Quality Assessment |
| Abass Alavi, MD | PI, Imaging |
| Kenneth Brayman, MD, PhD | Co-PI, Isolation and Human Transplantation |
| James F Markmann, MD, PhD | Sponsor / Co-PI, Non-Human and Human Transplantation and Isolation |
| Bryan A Wolf, MD, PhD | PI, Islet Quality Assessment |
| Eileen Markmann, RN, BSN, CCTC | Clinical Coordinator |
| Maral Palanjian | Clinical Coordinator |
| Paige Oliver | Administrative Coordinator |
Alavi, Abass
Dr Alavi received his medical degree from the University of Tehran School of Medicine in 1964. He did his internship at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and completed his residency at the VA Medical center in Philadelphia. He completed fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Hematology-Oncology and Nuclear Medicine. In 1973 he became an instructor in Radiology at UPenn School of Medicine. By 1979 he had become Chief of Nuclear Medicine at the Hospital of The University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and still holds that title. He is presently a full professor of Radiology at Penn Med, Associate Director at the Center for the Study of Aging at Penn and Medical Director for the Positron Emission Tomography (PET)Center at Penn.
Barker, Clyde
Dr. Barker earned both his undergraduate and medical degrees from Cornell University. He began his internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1958 in the field of surgery and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Medical Genetics at HUP. By 1969 he was Chief of Transplantation Surgery at HUP and also was an Associate in Medical Genetics for 6 years. ; By 1983 he was a member of the Graduate Group in Immunology, Professor of Surgery, on the Executive Committee for the Diabetes Center School of Medicine, Director of the Harrison Department of Surgical Research and Chairman of the Department of Surgery. In 1989 he also became Co-Director of the Diabetes Center School of Medicine. He holds all of these positions today.
Dr. Brayman completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts in 1977 receiving a BS in Biochemistry. Following that, he obtained a MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981, completed the surgical training program and obtained a PhD from Penn in 1989. He left Penn in 1989 to do a Transplantation Fellowship at the University of Minnesota, but returned in 1992 as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of the Pancreas Transplant Program. In 1995, Dr. Brayman assumed Directorship of the Renal Transplant Program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. An Associate Professor of Surgery and Associate Professor of Surgery in Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Dr. Brayman's primary clinical interests are in renal and pancreas transplantation. He has experience in human and large animal islet isolation and transplantation. His research interests are in tolerance induction, gene therapy and xenotransplantation.
Markmann, Eileen
Mrs. Markmann recieved her nursing degree from Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in Darby, PA in 1971 and her BSN from La Salle University in Philadelphia. She gained nursing experience in Delaware County Memorial, Tallahassee Memorial and Abington Memorial Hospitals. She was the Outpatient Kidney Transplant Coordinator at HUP for two years before she went to Doylestwon Hospital where she nursed extensively, holding several nursing positions including Critial Care and Clinical Coordination. Eileen spent one year at Bucky County Medical Associates before returning to the University of Pennsylvania where she has been the Inpatient Kidney Transplant Coordinator since 1990. She is now the Clinical Coordinator for the Islet Transplantation Program at HUP. As clinical coordinator she is, among other things, responsible for recruiting, screening and talking with prospective patients about islet transplantation.
Dr. Markmann received both his MD and PhD in Immunology at Penn Med. He completed a general surgery internship and residency at Penn and is Board Certified in General Surgery. He left Penn for two years for a fellowship in Multiorgan Transplant Surgery at UCLA. In 1998 he returned to Penn as an Assistant Professor of Surgery. His current clinical responsibilities include attending both the liver and kidney-pancreas service. His long standing laboratory interests focus on the induction of immunological tolerance and genetic modification of islet allografts to prevent rejection and recurrent autoimmune damage.
Matschinsky, Franz
Dr .Matschinsky completed his undergraduate degree at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany (1955). He then completed his Medical degree (1959) and obtained Postdoctoral Training in Biochemistry (1959-1962) at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. After completing an internship at the Marien Hospital in Hagen, Westfalen, Germany (1963)he came to Washington University Medical School in St. Louis for Postdoctoral Training in Pharmacology. There, he became an Assistant Professor (1965), an Associate Professor (1968), and then a Full Professor (1971) of Pharmacology. After spending 1976 as a Visiting Research Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Penn Med., he accepted a Professorship at Penn in Biochemistry and Biophysics (1978) and was later appointed to be the Benjamin Rush Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics (1984), a title he still holds today. Dr. Matschinsky also chaired the department of Biochemistry and Biophysics for nine years (1984-1993). He is, in addition Professor of Medicine at Penn Med. and just recently ended (1998) a twenty year administrative position as Director of the Diabetes Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Naji attended medical school at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran. After his Internship at Upstate medical Center in Syracuse, New York, he came to the University of Pennsylvania to complete his Surgical Residency during which he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Harrison Department of Surgical Research at Penn. After residency, he took a one year fellowship in Vascular Surgery as well as a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transplantation Biology. He then set out to earn a PhD in Immunology, which he received from Penn in 1981. After earning his PhD, Dr. Naji was hired as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Penn. He then was promoted to Associate Professor and holds a full Professorship in Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Wolf received a Master of Science from the Institute of Pharmacology from the University of Paris 7 and his Medical Degree from University of Paris 5. He returned to UParis 7 to complete a PhD in Nutrition/Endocrinology. In 1984 Dr. Wolf came to the United States and did a Post-doc in Biochemistry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. While doing his residency in Laboratory Medicine in the Departments of Pathology and Internal Medicine at Barnes Hospital, he also completed a Fellowship in Laboratory Medicine at Washington University. In 1990 he became an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Six years later he became an Associate Professor and has tenure. Besides professorship, he is also Director of the Radioimmunoassay Core and the Pilot and Feasibility Grant Program at the Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center at Penn, the Director of the Pathology Residency Program and the Associate Director of the Combined Degree and Physician Scholar Programs at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
The Islet Isolation Team (left to Right) Shaoping Deng MD - Isolation Lab Manager, Ergun
Velidedeoglu MD, Chengyang Liu MD, Xiaolun Huang MD PhD, Niraj Desai MD (not
pictured) and Adam Frank MD (not picured)
**Problems & questions regarding the program or this website should be directed to
Paige Oliver , program administrator.
Brayman,Kenneth