Our research projects

Pregnant women with early-onset type 2 diabetes are 3-4 times more likely to have stillbirth and newborn death than women without diabetes. Currently, there are limited self-management programmes available to support people with early-onset type 2 diabetes - and even less for pregnant women with the condition. Professor Meek wants to design a new self-management programme for this group to provide vital support before, during, and after pregnancy to protect the health of mothers and their babies. 

Living with diabetes can increase the risk of kidney disease, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease. Professor Luigi Gnudi has found a new protein that can tune signalling molecules to protect kidney cells and blood vessels. Understanding how the protein does this could help researchers to develop new treatments that can heal damaged kidney cells and also lower the risk of heart and blood vessel problems for people living with diabetes. 

Not everyone with diabetes is diagnosed with the right type straight away. Professor Angus Jones wants to shed more light on how common misdiagnosis is and who could benefit from extra checks by analysing data from a large health study, called the UK Biobank. His insights could help more people with diabetes to get the right diagnosis, and the right care and advice. 

It’s not always easy to diagnose which type of diabetes a person has. This is because the symptoms and test results can overlap, particularly in people from some ethnic groups. In this project, Professor Shields will improve calculators used to get the diagnosis right in many more people with diabetes. 

Obesity and type 2 diabetes can both harm the kidneys. Dr Li Kang has discovered a group of molecules that may be involved in this process. She will now investigate whether blocking these molecules could help protect the kidneys from damage in people living with obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-making beta cells. Dr Mark Russell and his PhD student will test existing drugs that could help to hide and protect beta cells from attack. This could lead to a new way to slow down type 1 diabetes, giving people more time with their own insulin and protecting their future health. In the longer term, the drugs could also help to cure type 1 diabetes. 

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that can develop during pregnancy. It can increase the risk of both mum and baby developing type 2 diabetes in the future. Dr Sarah Chapple wants to know if a chemical found in broccoli, called sulforaphane, could help the pancreas to work better during pregnancy. This will help us understand if sulforaphane holds promise to treat people with or at risk of gestational diabetes, and to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes for mums and their children. 

Autoantibodies are proteins made by the immune system that signal it has begun to attack the pancreas. People who have two or more types of autoantibodies will almost certainly go on to fully develop type 1 diabetes in their lifetime. 

Dr Rachel Besser wants to make a list of everyone in the UK who has autoantibodies, called the UK islet autoantibody registry. The aim is to monitor how they progress through the early stages of type 1 diabetes, connect them with clinical trials of new treatments designed to slow down this progression, and understand how best to support them within the NHS.

Type 2 diabetes can come with an increased risk of cardiovascular problems affecting the heart and blood vessels. Professor Stephen Wheatcroft wants to test ‘recipes’ for new molecules that can protect against these issues, and also treat type 2 diabetes. This could help researchers to develop new treatments for type 2 diabetes that also lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Established in 2011, ADDRESS-2 is a database of information from of people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes who have agreed to be involved in research. This new funding will continue to support the program and allow the team recruit more people. The team will work with the type 1 diabetes Immunotherapy Consortium to increase the number of people recruited into immunotherapy trials. These trials aim to find new ways to prevent, or cure, type 1 diabetes.