Our research projects

Disruptions to our body clock can have a surprising impact on our health, including links with eye damage for people living with diabetes. Dr Eleni Beli wants to take a closer look at these links, to understand more about how eye damage can develop and progress. Her research could uncover an innovative new approach to help people with diabetes avoid sight loss.

Eighty per cent of people living with diabetes take medications to treat their condition. Professor Helen Colhoun will look at the health records of everyone with diabetes in Scotland to learn more about the effectiveness and safety of different diabetes medications when they’re used in the real word. This could pick up any missed safety concerns or benefits that weren’t spotted in clinical trials and transform how diabetes drugs are prescribed. In doing so, this could reduce the number of people living with diabetes who experience harmful side effects, making their care safer and more personalised. 

Self-management programmes can empower people with type 2 diabetes to manage their condition and improve their health. But current programmes aren’t suited to the unique needs of younger people living with type 2 diabetes. Dr Michelle Hadjiconstantinou is testing a new digital self-management programme designed for and with this group and working out how it could be slotted into NHS care. This could ensure younger people get the tailored support they need to live well with the condition.  

Women living with type 1 diabetes and their babies can be at a higher risk of difficulties during pregnancy and birth. Professor Claire Meek wants to see whether levels of a molecule found in the blood can help to predict a high-risk pregnancy. Being able to spot potential problems in advance could help women with type 1 and their babies to get the tailored care they need to avoid these problems.

Scientists can test for signals made by the immune system, called autoantibodies, to help diagnose which type of diabetes someone has. And to help predict who is at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes in the future. Professor Gillespie is exploring how to increase the accuracy of an autoantibody test and ready it for use in the NHS. This could lead to better ways of diagnosing type 1, identifying it as its earliest stages, and could give us new insights into its immune root causes.  

Professor Vivien Coates will study the experiences of women with diabetes who are going through menopause to understand its impact on blood sugars and diabetes management, and where support is missing. In the future this could help health services to provide the best possible care for women with diabetes to support them with the unique challenges the menopause can bring.

There are a number of inherited genetic conditions causing very low body fat stores. One of these is congenital generalised lipodystrophy type 2 which can also lead to type 2 diabetes. Dr McIlroy’s shown that gene therapy can treat this condition so he’s now going to study it in more detail. He’s hoping this knowledge will lead to better treatments for type 2 diabetes.