Research
Research grant funds diabetes study
Professor Glyn Stanway, of the Department of Biological
Sciences, was recently awarded £101,227 by the European Commission to
study the potential links between certain viral infections and diabetes.
Professor Glyn Stanway
Professor Stanway's group is one of six laboratories from five
different European countries who have come together to carry out this
essential research into viruses and diabetes.
Over recent years there has been mounting evidence to suggest that a
proportion of cases of insulin-dependent, juvenile onset (type I) diabetes
are preceded by infections with enteroviruses (viruses infecting the
intestine and sometimes other organs). The incidence of this type of
diabetes is increasing throughout Europe and it is the aim of Professor
Stanway to determine whether there is indeed a link between these
enteroviruses and diabetes, and also to identify other risk factors.
As experts in the molecular biology of enteroviruses, the team who will
carry out the research at Essex, will be required to characterise in
detail the particular viruses involved and to investigate whether they
have any specific features which could account for their ability to induce
disease.
Professor Stanway explained that if the research does find a specific association,
it could lead to the development of vaccines which could prevent
infection and thus protect individuals who would otherwise have developed
diabetes as a result of a viral infection.'
Also in the printed February edition of Wyvern:
