Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory members include:- 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.
Diabetes mellitus type 1 diabetes is diagnosed first. Some people with type 1 diabetes experience dramatic and recurrent swings in glucose levels, often occurring for no apparent reason; this is called "unstable diabetes","labile diabetes" or "brittle diabetes". The results of such swings can be irregular and unpredictable hyperglycemias, sometimes involving ketoacidosis, and sometimes serious hypoglycemias. Brittle diabetes occurs no more frequently than in 1% to 2% of diabetics. Type 1 diabetes is associated with alopecia areata (AA). Type 1 diabetes is also more common in the family members of people with AA. The cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. A number of explanatory