Congratulations to Dr. Cherie Stabler and her collaborators who were recently awarded with an impressive $4.9M NIH UC4 grant. The proposal titled, “Engineering a Human Physiomimetic Islet Microsystem”, seeks to develop an organ-on-a-chip platform for pancreatic beta cells which serve as a platform for screening pharmaceutical agents, studying disease progression, optimizing primary beta cell culture, and directing stem cell differentiation of beta cells.

Dr. Stabler is collaborating with Dr. Ashutosh Agarwal (a former UF MSE PhD graduate!) who will engineer the microfluidic platforms and Dr. Camillo Ricordi who will assist in the pancreatic islet screening. Dr. Stabler joins the UF BME faculty member this spring and is one of the key faculty members involved in the newly formed UF Diabetes Institute. The institute aims to bring together expertise in diabetes from across campus. Read the full announcement with additional details here.