The Children’s Diabetes Centre was honoured to have leading international experts Laurel Messer and Professor Mike Riddell as guest speakers at its community forum and research symposium recently.
Laurel, a certified diabetes educator and senior instructor at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes at the University of Colorado, shared her experience with closed loop pump systems in clinical practice and also gave the audience a glimpse of future pump and sensor technology.
Mike, the co-founder of the Physical Activity and Diabetes Unit at York University in Toronto, shared his research on exercise, particularly the benefits of regular physical activity in disease management and how to make exercise safer by improving blood glucose control.
As someone living with type 1 and caring for a son with the disease, Mike also spoke candidly about the challenges he and his son faced and how this motivated them to be involved in research.
Young people with type 1 also shared their experiences around exercise and technology and why they participated in research, before joining Mike and Laurel on a Q&A panel discussion. Many thanks to Andrew Brown, Lauryn Hope-Blyth and Ava Catalano for sharing their stories.
The forum was attended by more than 100 people including diabetes patients and their families, stakeholders and researchers.
Mike and Laurel also delivered presentations on emerging exercise and technology research at the Centre’s two-day research symposium, which culminated in a workshop to brainstorm research questions concerning exercise and technology.
Symposium attendees included researchers from The Kids Research Institute Australia and Perth Children’s Hospital, students, collaborators from interstate paediatric and local adult hospitals, young people living with type 1 and parents of children with type 1 diabetes.
A highlight of the event was a panel Q&A session featuring young people living with diabetes on research participation, their experiences and what they would like to see researched.
Also, on the agenda were student presentations on exercise research, a presentation on analysis and study design by Monash University Associate Professor Arul Earnest and a session by The Kids’ Dr Keely Bebbington and Dr Ashleigh Lin on improving mental wellbeing through exercise and technology research.
For those who were unable to attend the Community Forum, please watch the video posted on this page.
Left: Professor Liz Davis, Professor Mike Riddell, Laurel Messer and Professor Tim Jones.
Right: Guest panel speakers Andrew Brown, Lauryn Hope-Blyth and Ava Catalano.