Our research projects

Antidepressant drugs have been found to help lower blood sugar levels in people living with type 2 diabetes and depression. Dr Liu’s team want to explore whether the drugs can protect insulin-producing beta cells, and how they do this. In the future, this could help scientists to repurpose antidepressants to open the door to new ways to treat type 1 or type 2 diabetes. 

Professor Timothy Tree and researchers across the UK will set up a network of specialist labs to examine samples from all UK-based trials of immunotherapies for type 1 diabetes. They will carry out state-of-the-art studies of their safety and effectiveness to understand exactly how treatments work to control the immune system, and who could benefit most from different treatments. In the future, immunotherapies could give us a way to prevent, halt and cure type 1 diabetes.

It’s possible to identify people who are very likely to develop type 1 diabetes by looking for signs in the blood that indicate the immune system has started to plan an attack on the pancreas. Professor Parth Narendran is exploring how a programme to test children for these signs and find out their risk of type 1 diabetes would best work in the UK.

The ELSA study will screen 20,000 children using a simple blood test. Screening can help to make sure children have the earliest, safest diagnosis possible. And children found to be at risk could be eligible for trials of promising new treatments. ELSA will give us vital insights that could help lead to a routine, widespread type 1 diabetes screening programme in the UK.

The pancreas-liver-gut axis are a group of organs that work together to control blood sugar levels. Changes in blood flow in these organs have been found in type 2 diabetes. Professor Murphy plans to understand these blood flow changes better and see if they hold the answer to improving current type 2 diabetes treatments or finding new ones. 

Having gestational diabetes can increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes in later life for both mother and baby. Dr Bowe wants to better understand why. He will study changes in the pancreas that happen during pregnancy in women with gestational diabetes to find out if, and how, this has a lasting impact which puts mum and baby at a greater risk of type 2. This could inform new treatments to help women and their children reduce their risk and make sure fewer people get type 2 diabetes in the future.

The bacteria living in our gut play an important role in our health, and could have a hand in the development of type 2 diabetes. Professor Dumas will study the gut bacteria of people who are at high risk of type 2 diabetes to discover which species of bacteria could be involved in either increasing or reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. This could help scientists to develop new treatments that change the makeup of our gut bacteria and help to prevent type 2 diabetes.

Gestational diabetes can increase the risk of mothers developing type 2 diabetes and heart problems later in life. It could also damage the placenta, which can pose a threat to babies in the womb. These problems might be due to a decrease in specialist immune cells during gestational diabetes. Dr Cristiano Scotta is developing a better way to study the placenta in the lab. His approach could potentially help to develop new treatments that better protect mothers and their babies during and after pregnancy.

As some people living with type 1 diabetes benefit from hybrid closed loop, they still need to count carbs and adjust insulin doses at meals. Professor Roman Hovorka’s team is developing a fully automated system that hopes to reduce these demands and act more like a true ‘artificial pancreas’. They’re investigating why their current fully closed loop system works for some people with type 1 but not for others. They hope to optimise their technology so that more people could benefit from and access it in the future.

Muscle damage is a common but under-studied complication of type 2 diabetes. It reduces mobility and can affect independence. Professor Lee Roberts will explore if a drug licensed to treat problems with how the body processes iron could help to improve muscle health and quality of life. This could improve our understanding of muscle damage in people with type 2 diabetes and provide us with better ways to treat it.

Polypharmacy is when people are prescribed multiple medications at the same time. It’s common in people with diabetes, and while it can be helpful in many ways, it can also throw up challenges. Professor David McAllister wants to shed more light on polypharmacy in people with diabetes. He’ll study health records and interview people with diabetes and healthcare professionals to understand their experiences. This clearer picture could help to develop approaches to reduce polypharmacy and its harm.