After an intensely competitive process, the research team at Princess Margaret Hospital lead by Professor Tim Jones and Associate Professor Liz Davis were awarded $5.2million from a joint JDRF/NHMRC research grant. This funding acknowledges the expertise that the team at Princess Margaret Hospital has in conducting meaningful research. It also means that people with Type 1 Diabetes in Western Australia, and our research collaborators, will continue to have the opportunity to benefit from the latest ways of managing type 1 diabetes.
Associate Professor Liz Davis leads one of the grants, which specifically focuses on exercise and diet. I asked her what we hope to deliver through this funded research:
"We have a vision to improve the lives of children with type 1 diabetes. We know that exercise and food is difficult to manage as this often results in either hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia. With the research now funded, we will work out ways in which people with type 1 diabetes can manage exercise and food so that we can lower the risk and worry of going low or high. We especially want to see how we can use new technologies like continuous glucose monitoring can help managing blood glucose levels around exercise and eating"
Professor Tim Jones is the principal investigator in the artificial pancreas (or closed loop) research being performed at Princess Margaret Hospital and our research collaboration across Australia. The grant will fund our artificial pancreas program. I also asked Professor Jones what we should expect from the research:
"In the last 5 years we have seen amazing progress in diabetes technology, especially in insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring and artificial pancreas systems. This means we are on the cutting edge of a revolution in diabetes management. Now we have the funding, we can finally move artificial pancreas research away from the clinic and into the home, and see how well it can change the lives of people with type 1 diabetes and their families. It is hugely exciting, that after years of hard work with early systems and devotion of patients to our research efforts, that we can confidently let people use the technology in the real world."
Watch out for research updates in our newsletters and website.