Professor Shanta Persaud

Shanta Persaud is Professor of Diabetes & Endocrinology in the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences and Head of the Guy’s Campus Section.

She has a first class BSc in Physiology & Pharmacology and a PhD on the regulation of insulin secretion from islets of Langerhans. She lectures on diabetes and endocrinology to BSc students and runs training workshops to MSc and PhD students. Her main research interests lie in investigating ligand interactions with islet G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and signal transduction pathways involved in the secretion of islet hormones and beta-cell mass regulation. Other key areas of research include defining human endocrine pancreas developmental trajectories; cross-talk between metabolically active cells and islets; stimulus-response coupling in human islets. Techniques used by members of her group include isolation of islets from experimental animals; cell culture; measurement of apoptosis by caspase assays; measurement of ATP and NAD(P)H generation; detection of islet cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo by BrdU incorporation into DNA; transient and stable transfection of cells for gene overexpression; CRISPR-mediated gene knockdown; isolation and analysis of RNA and DNA; quantitative RT-PCR; single cell RNA sequencing; spatial transcriptomics; single molecule fluorescence in situ hybridisation; calcium microfluorimetry; dynamic hormone secretion in perifusion; measurement of hormone and cyclic nucleotide levels by immunoassay; investigation of cell-cell interactions and signalling events in cell populations by time-lapse live cell imaging; fluorescence immunocyto/histochemistry; Western blotting of PAGE-fractionated proteins; measurement of serine/threonine and tyrosine kinase activities in situ and in vitro; PRESTO-Tango beta-arrestin recruitment assay for identifying ligand-GPCR interactions; intra-peritoneal glucose and insulin tolerance tests; beta-cell-targeted gene deletion in mice in vivo.