Why the portal vein in the liver, since islet cells normally would reside in the pancreas?
The liver still provides portal blood drainage, meaning that the islets–if in the pancreas and still functioning–would be secreting insulin, and the insulin would be going through the portal system up through the liver. So you still get portal vein drainage. The reason that we didn’t transplant into the pancreas is that putting a needle into the portal vein is much simpler than trying to go into the pancreas.
