Diabetes Research Group
This Research Group has as its remit the improvement of outcomes in diabetes care from the bench through the bedside to the community. The Group is represented both on the Denmark Hill Campus, which houses the Experimental Medicine Group, Programme in Diabetes and Mental Health and the human islet isolation programme, and on the Guy’s Campus, which houses the basic research programmes on islet physiology, immunology and cell biology and nanotechnology in glucose sensing and insulin delivery.
The Experimental Medicine group investigates human metabolism in vivo and application of technology to explore the pathophysiology of and find better treatments for two major problems in diabetes – on the one hand, the issue of treatment related hypoglycaemia and on the other the global pandemic of obesity related diabetes and insulin resistance. The group has a collaborative Metabolic Neuroimaging programme, investigating hypoglycaemia unawareness and appetite dysregulation. A clinical programme of intensified insulin therapy in Type 1 diabetes is backed up by basic research into technologies for glucose sensing and insulin delivery.
The Diabetes and Mental Health programme includes community based studies, including interventions, on the impact of depression on diabetes outcomes and the potential for psychologically based therapies to improve such outcomes. Islet Biology Group investigate the function, growth and development of islets and the potential for new therapies based on greater understanding in these areas, working closely with the King’s islet transplantation programme and human islet isolation.
All groups interact with each other and with colleagues in the Nutritional Sciences section of the Division, developing a focus on understanding the pathopysiology of Type 2 diabetes and obesity and applying that knowledge to new preventive and therapeutic interventions.