Speaking at the official opening, WMI’s executive director, Professor Tony Cunningham said the new diabetes research team is ideally positioned to aid the national fight against type 2 diabetes.
“Based in Western Sydney, WMI’s researchers are right in the middle of the type 2 diabetes epidic and we have the ability to translate discoveries into potential therapies for diabetes patients at Westmead Hospital next door,” Prof Cunningham said.
Professor Jenny Gunton, who heads up the CDOR at WMI and is also the chair of medicine at Westmead Hospital, said some of her team are investigating ways to increase beige fat in diabetes patients.
Beige fat is a ‘good fat’ which burns rather than stores energy, making hosts thinner.
“After inherited risk, we know that obesity and unhealthy lifestyles are the major risk factors for type 2 diabetes. This research may find ways to burn calories and increase fitness and, as more than 50 per cent of Australians are overweight, it’s an important area of investigation for the nation’s health and wellbeing,” Prof Gunton said.
“Our study will progress to a clinical trial of people with type 2 diabetes who are overweight or obese, hopefully late this year at Westmead Hospital,” she said.
WMI and Westmead Hospital have a long history with diabetes research, leading to the establishment of Australia’s first successful clinical pancreatic islet cell transplant program.
A team led by the director of the CTRR, clinical professor Philip O’Connell, used the technique to treat patients with a type 1 diabetes and severe low blood glucose levels, called hypoglycaia unawareness.
Infusing the patients with pancreatic islet cells from donor organs restored normal blood glucose levels without the need for insulin injections, thus effectively curing type 1 diabetes in many cases.
A patient in the trial, Ms Ruth Cummock, has not needed insulin injections for nearly six years, and says the medical breakthrough has had a hugely positive impact on her quality of life.
“Without the transplants I probably would be totally blind today and if I’d had a really bad episode of hypoglycaia unawareness, I might not be alive.”
Clinical professor Philip O’Connell says not only is his team working on continual incrental improvents on current islet transplant treatments, they are working on the next steps in finding a cure for type 1 diabetes.
His current research is looking at genetically modifying pig insulin-producing cells to trick the immune syst into thinking they are human and hence avoiding rejection.
Prof Cunningham says translational – or ‘bench to bedside’ – research successes such as the pancreatic islet program will be enhanced by WMI’s new, state-of-the-art, research facilities co-located between the Westmead and Childrens’ hospitals.
“This level of collaboration and translation is the key to fast-tracking medical research into clinical trials and ultimately effective treatments for patients – and it happens across the whole spectrum of medical disciplines,” Prof Cunningham said.
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