T1D EXCHANGE
United States

Unitio, Inc. (Unitio) is a nonprofit organization that unites those affected by disease with those committed to advancing better care and treatments in order to improve outcomes. The Organization’s flagship program, T1DExchange, functions as a research organization dedicated to accelerating therapies and improving care for people affected by type 1 diabetes. T1D Exchange actively supports discovery and innovation—particularly at its earliest stages. At the same time, the organization asserts that evidence gathered in the “real world” is necessary to help bridge the gap between discovery in research settings and impact in people’s lives. The T1D Exchange model uses cutting-edge research tools, methods, and programs to gather biological samples from people living with type 1 diabetes, as well as evidence from their real-world and clinical experiences. The goal is to link patient samples, data, and insight to all stage of research and development, advancing the development of therapies and better care for everyone affected by type 1 diabetes.

In this project, T1D Exchange will provide human biospecimens and associated data to explore potential biomarkers of severe hypoglycaemia in patients with type 1 diabetes (WP2) and contribute to the overall WP2 objectives.

Dr Wendy Wolf, Director of the T1D Exchange Biobank

Dr. Wolf is a molecular biologist with 15 years of experience in the design, implementation, and use of patient-centric biobanks linked to electronic medical record data. At T1D Exchange, she collaborates with investigators in their use of biospecimens and health data from individuals with type 1 diabetes. Previously, Dr. Wolf was the Executive Director of Biorepositories at Boston Children’s Hospital. There, she developed an institutional resource of patient samples, health data, and supporting infrastructure for research. She also directed the NUgene Project, a biobank of DNA samples linked to longitudinal electronic medical record data from over 10,000 adult patients at Northwestern University’s Medical Center.

From 2007 to 2015, Dr. Wolf was an investigator with the NHGRI-supported electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network. She has participated as an investigator and consultant on many biospecimen studies and has served on NIH peer review panels for tissue banking and biospecimen technology grants. She is a member of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) Science Policy Committee.

Dr. Wolf is currently furthering development of the T1D Exchange Biobank to better support research discoveries.