DRIVE aims to improve pancreatic islet transplant therapy for diabetes mellitus. Transplant of insulin-producing pancreatic islets purified from donor pancreases can restore tight natural control of blood sugar and eliminate the need for multiple daily injections of insulin, thereby improving patient’s quality of life.The DRIVE project aims to develop technologies to dramatically improve the survival and engraftment rate of transplanted islets and forego the need for lifelong immune suppression. DRIVE’s vision is to widen the application of islet transplant therapy to more insulin-dependent diabetes patients (T1D and T2D).DRIVE is a 4-year project to be carried out by 14 European partners, coordinated by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

AMCARE develops regenerative therapies which aim to circumvent some of the limitations of current treatments for MI patients. Our rationale is to use biomaterials to deliver cells or growth factors to the heart.

My thesis title is "Glycosaminoglycan - Dependent Isolation of Mesenchymal Chondroprogenitor Populations from Human Bone Marrow"I was researching effective isolation of chondrogenic progenitor cells from human bone marrow for use in cartilage regeneration in osteoarthritis.