Our research projects

Blood vessels in our eyes have an internal clock. Dr Eleni Beli aims to understand if and how disruptions to this clock affect how eye damage in diabetes can develop and progress. These insights could lead to life-changing new treatments that protect the sight of people with diabetes.

People from Black African, African Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds are at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes and some of its complications than White people. Professor Daniel Cuthbertson will look at differences in body fat stores and insulin response among people from these ethnic groups to uncover biological factors that can contribute to type 2 risk. This could lead to tailored support and treatments to prevent and manage type 2 diabetes based on your ethnicity.

Gestational diabetes can increase the risk of mothers developing type 2 diabetes and heart problems later in life. It could also damage the placenta, which can pose a threat to babies in the womb. These problems might be due to a decrease in specialist immune cells during gestational diabetes. Dr Cristiano Scotta is developing a better way to study the placenta in the lab. His approach could potentially help to develop new treatments that better protect mothers and their babies during and after pregnancy.

As some people living with type 1 diabetes benefit from hybrid closed loop, they still need to count carbs and adjust insulin doses at meals. Professor Roman Hovorka’s team is developing a fully automated system that hopes to reduce these demands and act more like a true ‘artificial pancreas’. They’re investigating why their current fully closed loop system works for some people with type 1 but not for others. They hope to optimise their technology so that more people could benefit from and access it in the future.

Access to diabetes technology isn’t the same for everyone living with type 1. Prof May Ng wants to explore how ethnicity and where people live can affect whether children and young people use tech. Finding and addressing unfair gaps in accessing tech will help all young people to manage their diabetes better, no matter their background. 

Pregnant women with diabetes have a higher chance of their babies being born with heart problems. Dr Chivers is researching the factors that can cause this and also better ways of working out which babies are at greatest risk. In the future, this could help give better care to pregnant women with diabetes and their babies. 

Mitochondria are important in powering our cells. Mitochondria that don’t work properly are usually replaced by new ones. But in diabetes this system doesn’t work properly and this can lead to sight loss. Dr Romero is working to understand how this happens and whether a new treatment to help mitochondria could stop eye damage. 

Autoantibodies are signs in the blood that show the immune system has started to plan an attack on insulin-making beta cells. People who have autoantibodies will almost certainly go on to develop type 1 diabetes. Dr Rachel Besser wants to make a list of everyone in the UK who has autoantibodies. This registry could help researchers to understand what life is like knowing you’re at risk of type 1, as well as connect people at risk with clinical trials testing new treatments that could prevent or delay type 1 diabetes, helping to bring forward the day when they become more widely available.

Not everyone with diabetes is diagnosed with the right type straight away. Dr Angus Jones wants to shed more light on how common misdiagnosis is and who could benefit from extra checks by analysing data from a large health study, called the UK Biobank. His insights could help more people with diabetes to get the right diagnosis, and the right care and advice. 

Weight loss surgery can be a really effective way to lose weight and treat type 2 diabetes. But we don’t understand much about the impact of surgery on pregnancy. Professor Tricia Tan wants to figure out if one particular type of weight loss surgery is linked to a smoother pregnancy and birth. She’ll also look for better ways of diagnosing gestational diabetes in women who’ve had weight loss surgery. The findings could lead to safer pregnancies in women living with obesity, type 2 or gestational diabetes and healthier babies.