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.
Lifestyle causes of diabetes mellitus type 2 been found to contribute to approximately 55% of cases of type 2 diabetes; chronic obesity leads to increased insulin resistance that can develop into type 2 diabetes, most likely because adipose tissue (especially that in the abdomen around internal organs) is a source of several chemical signals, hormones and cytokines, to other tissues. Inflammatory cytokines such as TNFα may activate the NF-κB pathway which has been linked to the development of insulin resistance. Gene expression promoted by a diet of fat and glucose, as well as high levels of inflammation related cytokines found in the obese, can result in cells