Our research projects

Resistance, or strength training can help people with type 2 diabetes to improve their blood sugar levels and health. Dr Lewis Macgregor will examine if restricting blood-flow to muscles during resistance exercise can boost its positive effects on the body – making the training more effective when using lighter weights. This could help us to make this type of exercise a more feasible option for more people with type 2 and maximise its benefits on health. 

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. 

In some people, the immune attack that causes type 1 diabetes can progress slowly from childhood. In other people, it can start later in life and progress quickly. Dr Anna Long will study the immune systems of these different groups to find out why some people develop type 1 diabetes more slowly. In the future, this could lead to life-changing treatments to delay or prevent type 1 diabetes.

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. 

People with type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop depression. This could in part be down to our genes. Professor Prokopenko plans to study changes in the GLP-1R gene and look at if, and how, the gene could increase the risk of both type 2 diabetes and depression. If the shared genes affect the development of both conditions it could lead to improved medications that work to treat them. 

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. 

Proteins are key to keeping insulin-making beta cells healthy. But in type 2 diabetes, something goes wrong with the process where beta cells make new proteins. Dr Daniela Nasteska will study this in detail to understand what goes wrong and how this leads to type 2 diabetes. This could pave the way to new treatments for type 2 diabetes and unlock better ways to grow beta cells in the lab, ready for transplant.