Congratulations to Dr Rebecca Pedruzzi and Dr Ashley Ng who have been awarded the Rio Tinto Children’s Diabetes Centre; a JDRF Global Centre of Excellence, Seed Funding Grants.
The grants of $20,000 each, have been made possible through funding support by Rio Tinto, Telethon Trust and JDRF Australia, and are designed to encourage new research activities and develop new projects and partnerships.
Dr Rebecca Pedruzzi, an implementation scientist at the Children’s Diabetes Centre at the Kids Research Institute Australia, received seed funding to support her project: ‘Practical resources to support families navigating early-stage type 1 diabetes.’
“Due to advances in T1D knowledge and technology, an increasing number of WA children are being identified with early-stage T1D. Families are now living with this knowledge but have no certainty around when or how the condition will progress to a full clinical diagnosis that requires lifelong treatment with insulin therapy,” Dr Pedruzzi said.
“Families have expressed a need for access to up-to-date evidence-based resources to help them understand and manage the uncertainty of early-stage T1D.”
“The project will identify, and document early-stage resources targeting youth and their families and consult with the WA T1D community to confirm gaps in resources and advise future resource development.”
Dr Ashley Ng, Research Fellow at Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, received seed funding for her project: ‘Defining best practice paediatric to adult diabetes care transition - a multi-stakeholder perspective'.
Dr Ng said adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes faced many challenges with diabetes self-management as they transitioned from paediatric to adult care.
"This project aims to understand best practices in a paediatric to adult diabetes care transition service. By doing so, we can better support those living with type 1 diabetes and their families or carers as they navigate this new phase in their lives," Dr Ng said.
We look forward to sharing their research progress with you throughout 2025.