František Saudek

František Saudek is professor of internal medicine and diabetology at Charles University in Prague and the head of the Islet Transplant Laboratory and emeritus director of the Diabetes Center at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) in Prague.

He has been involved in pancreas transplantation since 1983 and under his leadership more than 700 pancreas transplants (alone or with a kidney) have been performed at IKEM. In 2005 he founded the Islet Transplant Laboratory in IKEM with more than 120 clinical islet transplants accomplished by 2021. Prof. Saudek is a founding member of EPITA and full member of IPITA. In 2011 the Prague center hosted the 11th congress of IPITA. In 2011 – 2013 prof. Saudek served as the president of the Artificial Insulin Delivery Pancreas and Islet Transplant Group (AIDPIT).

The area of research interest of prof. Saudek involves metabolic and organ aspects of pancreas and islet transplantation, experimental transplantation of pancreatic islets, in vivo islet imaging, immunosuppressive therapy, development of technique for isolation of human islets of Langerhans and beta cell proliferation. The method of in vivo imaging of transplanted pancreatic islets using MR imaging developed by the Saudek’s group has been implemented by many laboratories over the world.