Professor Wayne Hawthorne leads the clinical and experimental islet isolation and xeno-transplant research teams at the Westmead Institute; appointed as laboratory director in 2001 on Australia's First Clinical Islet Transplant program at Westmead; his team were the first in Australia to perform both allo and auto islet cell isolation and transplantation and to perform islet after kidney and combined islet/kidney transplants in patients. He was one of the founding researchers of the Centre for Transplant and Renal Research where he remains responsible for experimental surgical research projects. Wayne's main research interests are in clinical islet cell isolation and transplantation. The aim of this research has been the development of pancreatic islet cell transplantation as a mainstream therapy for patients with difficult to control Type 1 diabetes.