I'm Christopher Nolan and I work as the director of
diabetes and endocrinology at the Canberra Hospital and I have affiliations with both the ANU Medical School and
the John Curtin School of Medical Research.
So, I research in diabetes.
Unfortunately diabetes prevalence keeps increasing and in Australia
it's estimated about 1.7 million people have diabetes.
Primary area of research is the islet beta cell or the insulin-secreting cell and
understanding how it works and how it fails.
What's really interesting is
we feel that the beta cell has a much more primary role in
in conditions such as type 2 diabetes, obesity related conditions, fatty liver disease,
polycystic ovarian syndrome.
NHMRC, it's a partnership with researchers. We work in collaboration.
The hints to date are
that these beta cells are hyper responsive to environmental stressors.
And in type 1 diabetes, this might be more viral, but also poor diet. In type 2 diabetes
our lifestyle that's affecting, stressing these beta cells.
Understanding the intrinsic defects in these beta cells is very important for
many aspects of diabetes related disease.
NHMRC funding to actually be good enough to receive it as really acknowledgement that
there's quality in your research and
that it's important.
First of all, preventing the disease. Finding better ways to treat it and
thirdly preventing diabetes complications.
