Fig. 1. Comparative analysis of living and organ donors as the source of pancreatic tissue for islet studies.

The schematic representation illustrates some key opportunities and limitations specifically associated with either organ donors (left) or living donors (right). These range from clinical and laboratory profiling of the donor, amount and properties of the retrieved pancreatic tissue, possibilities for analysis of other organs and follow-up investigations of the same donor. The lower central box highlights challenges in the field, such as the need to increase the number of donors and recruiting centers by increasing public awareness and funding to support the infrastructures required for these activities. Best practice requires the standardization of the clinical phenotyping of the donors. This figure was created with BioRender.com.