On August 3, JDRF, in collaboration with The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, announced the award of a $4.6 million grant to the laboratory of Camillo Ricordi, M.D., of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami. The three-year grant will fund research in the area of beta cell encapsulation, a method by which researchers aim to improve the viability of donor pancreatic islet cells for use in transplantation in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Dr. Ricordi and his team are developing a bioactive “capsule” that will simultaneously protect implanted islet cells from the recipient’s immune response and allow them to work in the body like natural beta cells, producing insulin as needed.