Over the past six years, van Apeldoorn has progressed from a postdoctoral position under the supervision of Prof. Clemens van Blitterswijk (Department of Tissue Regeneration, University of Twente) to an Assistant Professor and leader of the Islet Group in a new department led by Prof. Marcel Karperien (Department of Developmental Bioengineering, University of Twente). He was appointed Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Diabetes Cell Therapy Initiative, a Dutch consortium funded by the Diabetes Fonds comprising two university hospitals, three biotechnology companies, and his own group at the University of Twente, and is the Principal Investigator on two $1M JDRF consortium grants with collaborators in both the Netherlands and the United States. Van Apeldoorn currently supervises PhD candidates and a number of Biomedical Engineering and Technical Medicine Masters students and undergraduates. To briefly summarise his major research findings, Dr van Apeldoorn has made the following major contributions: 1) development of the microwell culture platform for controlled cell aggregation, 2) development of a pulsed force bioreactor system for cartilage tissue engineering, 3) establishment of a type 1 diabetes research consortium (€11M; Diabetes Cell Therapy Initiative: www.dcti.net) in the Netherlands with Prof. Eelco de Koning (LUMC in Leiden) and Dr Paul de Vos (UMCG in Groningen) and three companies, and 4) founding of a new research line on type 1 diabetes and bioengineering for extrahepatic islet transplantation within the MERLN institute at the Maastricht University, the Netherlands. His position as a leader in his field is evidenced by nearly 40 publications, cited ~800 times and citation index (h-index) of 15. He receives speaking invitations at international meetings, media attention (interviews for newspapers, national television and radio), and participates in outreach activities such as the JDRF walk the Netherlands, and the Half-life Living Lamp project in collaboration with the Joris Laarman studio. "My group aims to develop a bioartificial pancreas for extrahepatic islet transplantation. Research in the Islet Group is within four major areas: 1) tissue engineering, 2) biomaterials development, 3) islet-extracellular matrix interactions, and 4) islet immunoprotection with membranes."