Our research projects

High blood sugar levels can affect the way kidney cells talk to each other, which can lead to kidney damage. Professor Claire Hills wants to understand the different languages that kidney cells speak and which ones are dangerous to kidney cell health. This will help researchers to create new treatments that translate or stop the dangerous languages and reduce the risk of complications in people living with diabetes.

Beta cells release insulin into the blood stream, but this complex process isn’t well understood. Dr Benoit Hastoy wants to investigate the process in more detail, to try and improve the effectiveness of existing treatments for people with type 2 diabetes.

Our scientists have shown that some adults with type 2 diabetes can go into remission through a low-calorie weight management programme. Dr Sachdev will now explore if the same approach is possible in children with type 2 diabetes. This could lead to a much-needed new treatment that gives children with type 2 the chance to go into remission and the opportunity for a healthier future.  

Immunotherapies work by retraining the immune system, and scientists hope they can stop or prevent the immune attack behind Type 1 diabetes. Clinical trials testing immunotherapies are going on right now, but we don’t have a good way of measuring how effective a treatment is.

Professor Colin Dayan will combine different measurements to develop a score that indicates how successful the drugs are. This could speed up progress and help to make these treatments available for people with Type 1 sooner.

Losing sensation in the feet is one of the most common diabetes complications. It's often diagnosed too late and, in the most serious cases, can result in amputation. So it is vitally important to find a way to predict who’s at risk as soon as possible. Professor Robyn Tapp is testing whether photos taken at the annual eye screening for people with diabetes could be used as an early warning system to identify people at high risk of foot problems, and prevent complications.

Some people with type 2 diabetes are treated with drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors. As well as lowering blood sugar levels, these seem to keep the heart and kidneys safe from damage caused by inflammation. Professor Claire Hills wants to figure out how they protect kidney cells. Her work could help make sure more people benefit from SGLT2’s and could unlock new treatments that tackle inflammation and further reduce the risk of complications. 

In diabetes, insulin-making beta cells in pancreas have either been destroyed or don’t work properly. Dr Liu is researching a molecule called miR-33 to see if blocking it could help beta cells to work better. This could lead to new treatments for type 2 diabetes and improvement transplants of beta cells for people living with type 1.

Gestational diabetes develops during pregnancy. People can experience high levels of stigma linked to the condition, which can have a negative effect on their mental and physical health. Dr Rita Forde and Prof Angus Forbes will work with women who have experience of gestational diabetes and healthcare professionals. Together, they'll develop communication tools that aim raise awareness of and combat gestational diabetes- related stigma. 

The use of antipsychotics in children has increased dramatically in recent decades. In adults, these drugs are linked with a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. But we don’t know how they affect type 2 risk in children and young people. Dr Lau will study NHS medical records from those treated with antipsychotics and will search for risk factors of type 2 in this group. This could give us better ways to help prevent type 2 diabetes in children who take antipsychotics.

Lower levels of vitamin C have been linked with obesity and an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Professor Jon Whitehead will explore how vitamin C gets into fats cells and if more vitamin C inside these cells helps insulin to work better. Understanding this could help us find out if vitamin C supplements could become a new strategy to help treat type 2 diabetes in the future.