Tag: research

Wikramanayake Clinical Diabetes Research Award

Congratulations to Type1Screen’s lead doctor, Associate Professor John Wentworth, for being awarded the Ranji and Amara Wikramanayake Clinical Diabetes Research Award at the 2024 Australian Diabetes Society Congress (ADC).

Professor Tony Russell, President of the Australian Diabetes Society, presents A. Prof. John Wentworth with the inaugural Wikramanayake award for clinical diabetes research.

John was awarded this predominantly due to his tireless work in the type 1 diabetes research space, but especially the improvement of early detection, diagnosis and intervention.

One of the elements of this critical work, has been the development of an at home screening test which can detect islet autoantibodies (early markers of type 1 diabetes development) on a dried blood spot card. So much more convenient and accessible to families, especially those who don’t like needles in the arm for a blood test or living in more rural and remote areas.

With colleagues, Dr Wentworth has also pioneered the facilitation of immunotherapy trials in Australia. His aim is to have a trial available for people at all ages and stages of type 1 diabetes, to preserve beta cell production of insulin for those with a diagnosis of clinical type 1 diabetes, or to slow or stop the progression for those in the early stages.

John Wentworth giving his award presentation at the 2024 ADC in Perth

World Diabetes Day 2023

World Diabetes Day is 14th November every year (marking Sir Frederick Banting’s birthday – the scientist who is most famously credited for discovering insulin).

On this day in 2023, Diabetes Australia launched a campaign “Diabetes Research Changes Lives”. Type1Screen’s Dr John Wentworth features in their promotional video talking about the home testing kit for type 1 diabetes screening.

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/K_L_Td3KW3g

You can also go to the Diabetes Research Changes Lives website for more information and to perhaps sign the petition calling for more funding for diabetes research.

Children diagnosed with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes through public health screening have milder diabetes at clinical manifestation

Children identified with type 1 diabetes through a public health screening program tend to have a less severe form of the disease when symptoms emerge.

The Fr1da study group, based in Germany, aimed to see if diagnosing type 1 diabetes in children before they showed symptoms, and providing education and monitoring, could make the condition less severe when symptoms eventuated. Researchers compared two groups: one previously diagnosed early with screening (the Fr1da group), with one diagnosed without screening (often in DKA or ketoacidosis meaning life threateningly high blood sugar levels due to a lack of insulin production).

The screened group had better outcomes at the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes. This exhibited as lower blood sugar levels, lower doses of insulin, and fewer cases of severe diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). An important observation was the higher fasting C-peptide concentrations and reduced need for insulin therapy in the Fr1da cases, indicating a higher beta cell reserve. 

Their findings suggests that early diagnosis, with proactive education and monitoring, can make a significant difference in how children experience the onset of type 1 diabetes.

graphical abstract

The paper is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-023-05953-0