Our research projects

Sometimes insulin can cause cells to multiply rather than bringing down blood sugar levels. This can increase the risk of some cancers in people with diabetes. Prof Nia Bryant wants to better understand how and why insulin can have this effect. With her PhD student, she will pinpoint the specific areas on cells that causes insulin to lower blood sugars and not to tell cells to multiply. In the future, this could help scientists develop new treatments for people with diabetes that aren’t linked with an increased risk of cancer.

When fat cells are inflamed by high blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, they can release toxic levels of fatty acids into the blood, leading to insulin resistance. But cells in the body need a healthy level of fatty acids to work, so removing them completely isn’t an option. Professor Robin Klemm wants to understand more about how fatty acids are produced, which could help researchers to develop new treatments to control the level of fatty acids better and reduce insulin resistance.

As type 2 diabetes develops, alpha cells in the pancreas fail. Professor Hodson has found that a protein called GC plays a key role in how alpha cells function. He will run experiments to figure out how the loss of GC impacts why alpha cells go wrong in type 2 diabetes. In the future, this could lead to new treatments for type 2 diabetes that help to keep alpha cells working and give people better blood sugar control. 

Weight loss can lead to remission of type 2 diabetes but losing weight can be difficult. Professor Jebb aims to create a new NHS support service for people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and living with overweight or obesity, so they can try out different weight loss programmes and find the one that’s right for them. This could make all the difference in giving more people the chance to go into remission.

People with diabetes have a higher risk of getting more severe symptoms from common respiratory viruses, such as the common cold and flu, than people without diabetes. But we don’t yet understand why the immune systems of people with diabetes are less efficient at dealing with respiratory viruses, and why high blood sugars are linked to increased chance of severe symptoms. Dr Dominguez-Villar’s PhD student will work out how type 1 diabetes changes the way in which immune cells detect and fight respiratory infections.  

Losing weight and going into remission can be a huge challenge for people living with type 2 diabetes, and isn’t possible for everyone. Dr William Scott wants to figure out exactly what goes on in fat tissue during weight loss, and how and why this can help people go into remission. A deeper understanding of this could help scientists to develop first-of-a-kind treatments for type 2 diabetes that aim to directly trigger remission.

Insulin-making beta cells have recycling centres, called lysosomes, which help to break down waste inside our cells. When someone has type 2 diabetes, this process stops working properly. Dr Aida Martinez-Sanchez wants to investigate why this happens by studying the role a protein called M6PR, plays in controlling how lysosomes in beta cells behave. Understanding this could help researchers to develop better treatments for type 2 diabetes and improve those already available. 

Diabetes kidney disease mostly affects older people with type 2 diabetes. It can progress over time until the kidneys stop working and can result in further serious complications, like heart attack or stroke. Professor Dasgupta’s team will find out whether a prompt, which appears on computer screens, could improve how doctors give advice to older people with type 2 and kidney disease. And if this better guidance could help to slow kidney damage, helping people live healthier, happier lives. 

High blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels, and over time this can lead to diabetes complications. Professor David Long will enhance a pioneering new way of growing blood vessels in the lab to study how they behave in diabetes. Understanding what happens to blood vessels in high sugar levels could help researchers to develop new treatments that prevent or slow all sorts of complications.