ANN ARBOR – Michigan Medicine has partnered with type 1 diabetes research nonprofit JDRF to establish the new JDRF Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan. The goal of the center, through U-M’s Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute, is to accelerate research to cure type 1 diabetes and to improve lives. Ann Arbor resident Elizabeth Weiser Caswell and her father, Regent Ron Weiser, have made leadership gifts to kickstart the project. “Michigan Medicine is the ideal partner for JDRF,” Caswell said in a news release. “The JDRF Center of Excellence and the Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute establishes us as one of the premier diabetes centers in the country—and the strongest in the Midwest,” Thomas Gardner, principal investigator of the JDRF Center of Excellence and EWCDI, said in a news release.