Julien Arnold’s role in the Chicago Diabetes Project is to standardize the islet encapsulation process in order to bring it from research to a future full -scale production, compliant with all regulatory requirements. This involves testing of raw materials and defining their release criteria, as well as setting all critical encapsulation parameters to establish a standard procedure. The final target of all these procedures is to reduce batch-to-batch variations to a minimum and to achieve uniformity in capsule size, shape and release properties. Julien will lead ISO certification of the UIC facility.

Julien Arnold has a master’s degree in Material Science from the EPFL (Ėcole Polytechnique Fėdėrale De Lausanne)in Geneva, Switzerland. Currently he is Head of Technology of AQUA+TECH, a developer, producer and retailer of water-soluble materials with applications in the environment, personal care and medicine. He previously worked for more than three years as Production Manager for Achemis, a company that produces on a full scale over 50,000 kg of capsules per year. He studied in France then Germany, prior to completing his master’s degree in Switzerland.