When
Friday, September 11, 2026, at 12 p.m.
Keating 103 | Zoom link
Kristin Huntoon
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurosurgery
University of Arizona
"Innovative Strategies for Overcoming Challenges in Brain Tumor Treatment"
Kristin Huntoon is a fellowship-trained brain and spine tumor neurosurgeon and studies these devastating tumors in her research laboratory to develop new diagnostics and treatments. She is a grant-funded neurosurgeon-scientist with over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous book chapters. She additionally serves as co-chair of several committees on the Tumor Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons and is an editor for the Journal of Neurosurgery and World Neurosurgery among other scientific journals.
Klearchos Papas
Professor of Surgery, Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences and Physiological Sciences
Director, Institute for Cellular Transplantation
University of Arizona
"Diabetes, Beta-islet Cell Isolation"
Klearchos Papas has devoted his research career to the application of engineering principles and the development of enabling technologies in the fields of cell therapy and tissue engineering with a focus on the treatment of diabetes. He has studied and utilized the properties of insulin-secreting tissue and their relationship to viability and function in the context cell therapies for diabetes with the objective of improving cost-effectiveness, availability and clinical outcomes of this approach.
Prior to joining the University of Arizona in 2011, Papas served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota (2003-2011), where he held leadership positions as associate director of the Islet Transplant Program, director of Islet Processing Research and Development and director of the Islet Quality Assurance Core in the Schulze Diabetes Institute. Prior to that he held joint research positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Center for Islet Transplantation at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale University (1999-2003). Papas serves on the council of the Cell Transplant and Regenerative Medicine Society. He also serves on the editorial Board of the journals Cell Transplantation, Cell Medicine, Xenotransplantation and Cell R4.
