Professor Nam received the 2018 City of Hope – University of California-Riverside Biomedical Research Initiative (CUBRI) award for his proposal entitled “Promotion of insulin-secreting beta cell maturation via controlled mechanical cellular environment”. In collaboration with Professor Hung-Ping Shih in the Department of Translational Research and Cellular Therapeutics at City of Hope, the research team aims to develop a scaffolding system that can efficiently derive functional pancreatic beta cells from human pluripotent stem cells for their potential applications in diabetes treatment.