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Diabetes Research

Diabetes and associated metabolic conditions are among the most important medical challenges facing the world today. The Peninsula Medical School has developed particular strengths in this area, with researchers focusing on the causes of diabetes, the mechanisms of disease, and improved treatments for patients.

Diabetes results from impaired control of blood glucose levels. Two forms of the condition are recognised – type 1 diabetes, mainly affecting the young, caused by destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, and type 2 diabetes, associated mainly with obesity in middle age, in which tissues become less responsive to insulin.

Recently, however, it has become clear that these broad categories describe only sets of common symptoms, and that a wide range of underlying genetic and biochemical defects may be responsible for the conditions. If these causal factors were better understood, they would provide a lead for new therapeutics and offer the prospect of treatments targeted at particular subtypes of disease. Research at the Medical School in this area is wide ranging, from genetic analysis of different forms of diabetes, through the fundamentals of beta cell biology, to the mechanisms of blood vessel damage causing diabetic complications.

A better understanding of the genetic basis of diabetes has led to significant changes in clinical practice, with some patients being able to swap daily insulin injections for medication. More generally, it has provided diagnostic tests which are carried out at Exeter on behalf of doctors all over the world.

The School has already developed an international reputation for its research in diabetes; producing results with Professor Andrew Hattersley’s work on the genetics of diabetes being recognised by the award of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Medical Research in 2006. 

Further research information can be found by clicking the following links:

The Clinical Microvascular Research Group
Endocrine Pharmacology Group
Hypoglycaemia Research Group
Molecular Genetics
Molecular Medicine Research Group
Endocrinology and Metabolism