Our laboratory was recently awarded a new grant from the JDRF on engineering scaffolds for islet transplantation. This grant, in collaboration with the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, will focus on engineering highly translational platforms for housing islets for implantation. The Stabler lab will seek to improve on the PDMS scaffold base implant by incorporating drugs (for local drug delivery), oxygen (for improving islet survival), immunomodulatory surfaces (to instruct favorable responses), and ECM (to recapitulate the native matrix environment).