Diabetes mellitus affects more than 420 million people worldwide (http://www.diabetesatlas.org/) and its complications typically consume more than 10% of healthcare budgets in developed countries.

Imperial College, the MRC’s Clinical Sciences Centre, and our partners provide a constellation of groups with strengths in all forms of diabetes research. With a hub in the Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital Campus, the Pancreatic Islet Biology and Diabetes Consortium forms a group of more than 20 principal investigators, whose strengths range from clinical diabetology through human genetics, epigenetics and genomics, pancreatic beta cell biology, pre-clinical models, systems physiology, gene editing, optical and in vivo imaging, glucose sensor and insulin device delivery development.

Research funding is provided via the MRC, BBSRC, Wellcome Trust, EU, NIHR, NIH and others. We are also involved in some of the most important diabetes research consortia nationally including the MRC-funded DIVA consortium, and internationally through the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2) and the NIH-funded Human Islet Research Network.

Focussing on the biology of the pancreatic islet beta cell, whose failure is central to all forms of diabetes, our mission is to develop new insights which can be leveraged towards innovative new therapies for this devastating disease.