Congratulations to Diabetes UK-funded researcher Professor Stephanie Amiel, who has received a Damehood in the New Year Honours list, recognising her trailblazing work in diabetes research and its transformative impact on the lives of people with diabetes.
Stephanie Amiel is Emeritus Professor of Diabetes Research at King’s College London. Her life-changing research reshaped diabetes care by developing diabetes education courses, making transplants of donor insulin-making cells possible, and revolutionising our understanding of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar, also known as hypos).
She has been a dedicated supporter of Diabetes UK and our research, serving on our Research Committee and chairing our Science and Research Advisory Group for many years. Her guidance has helped set the direction of our research and ensure it delivers maximum impact.
Helping people manage their type 1
Prof Amiel’s remarkable career has been driven by a determination to make living with diabetes less demanding and difficult.
In 2000, with colleagues Prof Simon Heller and Dr Sue Roberts, she created a life-changing education course, Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating (DAFNE), with funding from Diabetes UK.
It helps people with type 1 diabetes learn to adjust their insulin doses depending on what they eat and the many other factors that can affect blood sugar levels, empowering them to confidently self-manage their condition.
By 2023, almost 60,000 people with type 1 diabetes in the UK had completed a DAFNE course, resulting in fewer blood sugar highs and lows and a better quality of life.
Helping some make their own insulin
In 2005, we then funded Prof Amiel and a team at King’s College London to carry out the UK’s first ever islet transplants.
Islet transplants involve taking clusters of insulin-making beta cells, called islets, from a donor pancreas and transplanting them into someone with type 1 diabetes.
By 2008, thanks to Prof Amiel’s pioneering work and leadership, islet transplants became available on the NHS to people with type 1 with hypo unawareness and who experience severe hypos.
They can be life-saving and provide powerful benefits – allowing people to temporarily make enough of their own insulin to reduce or stop insulin therapy, have stabler blood sugar levels, fewer severe hypos, and regain hypo awareness.
Help for hypos
Prof Amiel’s groundbreaking research has also changed the way we think about and treat hypos. This includes work to understand the biological mechanisms that drive low blood sugar levels, the impact hypos have on the lives of people with diabetes and their families, and uncovering new ways to tackle them.
In 1994, Prof Amiel showed that hypo awareness can be restored by avoiding hypos for a period. This offered – for the first time – a way for people to regain their ability to detect the signs of low blood sugars and reduce their risk of life-threatening severe hypos.
Along the way, Prof Amiel has also used techniques she developed to study hypos to look at other issues in diabetes, like the impact of insulin resistance and obesity on appetite, how ethnicity impacts type 2 diabetes, diabetes in pregnancy, and the relationship between physical and mental health in people with diabetes.
Prof Amiel said:
“This honour has come as a complete surprise to me – of course I am delighted. So much of what I have been able to achieve has been in collaboration with amazing colleagues and this award honours them too. One of the great joys of an academic career lies in the truly extraordinary people you meet.
“But to receive the honour for services to people with diabetes is at once heartwarming and humbling. They are the true heroes in the diabetes story and if I have been able to make things a little better for some of them, that is an honour indeed.”
Anna Morris, Assistant Director of Research at Diabetes UK, said:
“Professor Amiel’s Damehood is a testament to her tireless commitment to improving the lives of people with diabetes. Her extraordinary research contributions have transformed the landscape of diabetes care, bringing real change to so many.
“Her leadership and expertise have also played a pivotal role in guiding and strengthening our research at Diabetes UK.
“We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Dame Stephanie on this well-deserved recognition and thank her for years of unwavering dedication.”
