Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory The JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory (JDRF/WT DIL), centred in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, is a multi-disciplinary research programme within the department of Medical Genetics at the University of Cambridge. The current director is John Todd FMedSci FRS and Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Cambridge. The goals of the JDRF/WT DIL are to identify and characterise the effects of the susceptibility genes for type 1 diabetes in order to better understand the earliest events in human physiology that lead to autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing beta-cells of pancreas. Other notable
Epigenetics of diabetes Type 2 evidence that alteration in global DNA hypermethylation is associated with increased risk of IR independent of established risk factors. Because epigenetic modifications are possibly reversible, this research suggests the potential for lifestyle or therapeutic interventions for insulin resistance. As shown by various studies, there are a number of genes that affect a person’s risk of contracting Type 2 Diabetes. The same applies for obesity, which has several loci in common with the disease. Both are polygenic, but it is possible to identify at least part of the regions via DNA assays. Among these regions is the fat mass and obesity