The Section of Metabolic Medicine focusses on clinical diabetes research. The Section has developed an international reputation in health technology development and assessment, and is applying this to support people living with diabetes to self manage more effectively.

Research themes include closed-loop insulin delivery, novel small molecule sensing and personalised decision support using case based reasoning. The active technology research programmes are cross-faculty and multidisciplinary, incorporating expertise from the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Imperial is the co-ordinating centre for the diabetes theme of the NIHR Clinical Research Network, and leads the ADDRESS-2 study of new onset type 1 diabetes.

We have partnered with Oxford Brookes University, Universitat de Girona, Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Girona, Romsoft and cellnovo to bring together computer scientists, clinicians and industry leaders to create a personalised decision support system for diabetes management – the PEPPER project.

In addition to working toward revolutionising diabetes self management we are harnessing technology to address the growing challenges of diabetes diagnosis in a young, multi-ethnic population using a combination of genomic, biochemical and clinical parameters to ensure people with new onset diabetes receive the appropriate treatment – the MY DIABETES Study. This work is in collaboration with NIHR Imperial BRC Genomics Facility.

The Section is also addressing the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes with diabetes prevention studies using text messaging technology and pharmacology, and contributes to both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education within the Faculty of Medicine.