Led by Bristol’s Professor Kathleen Gillespie, both studies will focus on preventing type 1 diabetes through improved understanding of how the condition develops in people who are at high risk, as well as those with diabetes.
The first study, funded by a £637,000 grant from Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF), will bring together experts from Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter universities to understand more about how immune cells traffic to the pancreas.
The second study, funded by a £420,000 grant also from Breakthrough T1D, focuses on the part of the pancreas which does not make insulin – the exocrine pancreas. This region decreases in size even before diagnosis and little is understood about how and why this happens.