The 8th annual Sunny 94 Bionic Golf Tournament was held on Friday , September 7th at the Gull Lake Golf Course.

The annual event raises money for an arm of the University of Alberta Hospital Foundation known as HOPE, or the Human Procurement and Exchange program.

This year, money raised will help with islet transplants, a therapy that's been at the University of Alberta since 1999, explains Senior Islet Specialist with AHS Clinical Islet Lab, Doug O'Gorman.

“Our aim is to replace the beta cells that are lost because of the diabetes and the immune response that kills the beta cells, so we’re replacing those through donor pancreases in which we isolate the insulin producing cells and will infuse them with a person with diabetes into their liver.”

O'Gorman says the eventual goal, is to allow those patience to eventually become insulin independence, and now require insulin injections in the future.

He explains the importance of these fundraisers.

“Any event that will raise awareness will impact people down the road. In terms of raising funds for donations, everything that we do started as research at some point, and research can’t happen without funds. So raising money and donating to a cause like HOPE, it goes really a long way to allowing us to test and develop emerging technologies that will improve upon what we already do.”

Total funds raised from the tournament will be announced later this week.