Congratulations to Dr. Cherie Stabler, UF BME associate professor and associate chair for graduate studies, and her Ph.D. and M.S. students Kaiyuan Jiang , Jessica Weaver, Jiapu Liang, Xiongjian Chen, and Yanjunyi Li, on their recent paper, ‘Local Release of Dexamethasone from Macroporous Scaffolds Accelerates Islet Transplant Engraftment by Promotion of Anti-Inflammatory M2 Macrophages’ that was published in the journal Biomaterials.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease resulting in the targeted destruction of insulin-secreting beta cells. Clinical islet transplantation, where allogeneic pancreatic islets are transplanted into a patient to replace these destroyed cells, has achieved insulin independence for individuals suffering from labile diabetes with severe hypoglycemic unawareness. The paper explored the use of local drug delivery to decrease inflammatory responses to the cellular implant, showing you could direct the phenotype of macrophages (key players in directing the host response to a foreign body) from inflammatory to anti-inflammatory. This shift also resulted in the improved function of the islet transplant. This approach could lead to improved patient outcomes for recipients of islet transplants, by dampening early detrimental inflammatory responses.

Biomaterials is an international journal covering the science and clinical application of biomaterials. It is the aim of the journal to provide a peer-reviewed forum for the publication of original papers and authoritative review and opinion papers dealing with the most important issues facing the use of biomaterials in clinical practice. The scope of the journal covers the wide range of physical, biological and chemical sciences that underpin the design of biomaterials and the clinical disciplines in which they are used.