The mission of the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation Canada (DRIFCan) is to directly fund cure-based diabetes research conducted by Dr.James Shapiro and the team at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

The Diabetes Research Institute Foundation Canada (DRIFCan) was established in 2005 to fundraise for diabetes research, specifically for the Edmonton Protocol.  The protocol is named for the islet transplantation group at the University of Alberta in the Canadian city of Edmonton, where the protocol was first devised in the late 1990s, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine in July 2000. Dr. James Shapiro is the Director of the Clinical Islet Cell Transplant Program at the University of Alberta, where there are several ongoing human clinical trials.The Clinical Islet Transplant Program has performed more than 600 transplants to date, more than any other islet transplant center in the world.