My role in the Chicago Diabetes Project has been to coordinate the encapsulation sub-group and to be the interface between the team of medical doctors and scientists.  This team, which includes collaborators from the USA, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Israel, and France, is striving to find a way to protect the human insulin-producing cells.  The protected insulin producing cells will then be transplanted into diabetics and will regulate blood sugar levels, without using immune-suppressive drugs.  This sounds so simple and yet, it is huge.  A functional cure for diabetes that does not require immunosuppression will someday be a reality for children and young people in their child bearing years.  All it will take is time with scientists and physicians such as those on the Chicago Diabetes Project putting their hearts and minds to the task,  and of course,  the help of many generous supporters.

David Hunkeler is the General Director of AQUA+TECH, a developer, producer and retailer of water soluble materials with applications in the environment, personal care and medicine.  He has a doctorate in polymers and has been a professor in the United States and Europe for a decade.  He has authored over two-hundred scientific papers, written seven books, received awards for technology and entrepreneurship and, in his spare time, is a poet.