Our research projects

Bodyweight is one of many factors that influences risk of type 2 diabetes. But people with similar bodyweights can have different risks, so alone it doesn’t give us the full picture. Dr Hanieh Yaghootkar is looking at how genes influence where the body stores fat, and how different fat patterns may increase or decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes and its complications. Understanding this could help us to better predict who’s most at risk and lead to more effective, personalised care for people with or at risk of type 2 diabetes. 

Type 1 diabetes distress is very common, and can make living with the condition incredibly difficult. But we currently don’t have an effective treatment for it in the UK. Prof Jackie Sturt wants to develop and test a programme, called D-stress, designed to prevent, detect and manage diabetes distress. This vital research could help more people with type 1 diabetes to get the emotional support they need to live more happily with the condition.

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. 

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.

Diabetic foot ulcers can have a huge impact on people’s lives, and, in the most serious cases, infections can put people at risk of life-altering amputations. Dr Wilkinson wants to understand how bacteria cause infections and slow healing in foot ulcers in people with type 2 diabetes. This will help to develop new treatments that could protect people with diabetes against amputations.

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. 

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.

People of Black African and Caribbean descent are more than three times as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as White European populations. Research also shows that the way the condition develops can differ between different ethnic groups.  

Dr Gráinne Whelehan will investigate why by looking at differences in how quickly insulin is cleared from the blood and whether diet can influence this. Understanding this process could help to tailor care and improve type 2 prevention and management for people in Black African and Caribbean communities. 

Type 2 diabetes is complex and some people’s risk of it is harder to spot. A key hidden factor is where fat is stored in the body, not simply how much there is. Genetics play a major role in this, but we still don’t fully understand how certain genetic changes cause fat to be stored in harmful places, like around vital organs. Dr Kashyap Amratlal Patel and their PhD student are investigating these genetic clues so we can better identify people with this hidden risk, enabling earlier and more personalised support to prevent type 2. 

Immunotherapies work by retraining the immune system, and aim to stop or prevent the immune attack behind type 1 diabetes. Scientists are testing different immunotherapies in trials right now, but we need to speed up progress. Professor Colin Dayan will expand a network of immunotherapy research teams and improve the clinical trials process to help make these treatments available for people with type 1 as soon as possible.