Eelco de Koning is internist-endocrinologist at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and affiliated with the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht. At the Diabetes Research Laboratories, University of Oxford, he studied functional and pathological changes of Islets of Langerhans in type 2 diabetes. After his PhD he worked successively at the Medical Centre of Utrecht University, the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard University and finally at the LUMC. Currently, he coordinates the human islets transplantation program for patients with type 1 diabetes. At the Hubrecht Institute he leads research on generating human insulin-producing cells from progenitor cells in the pancreas and he works hard to cure type 1 diabetes.