Diabetes research: a world of colourful puzzles

Wolfson Research Fellow, Daniela Nasteska, recently published a short film about her research in Type 2 Diabetes.

Daniela is a principal investigator based at OCDEM, one of the divisions of Radcliffe’s Department of Medicine (RDM).

Her research focuses on pancreatic islets and type 2 diabetes. The islets are micro-organs that produce hormones, notably insulin, thus keeping the blood sugar normal. When they get damaged or the insulin they make can’t act on the target tissues, type 2 diabetes occurs. In this scenario, the blood sugar remains high and damages many organs, leading to lifelong complications and if left untreated, death.

More specifically, she is looking into protein making and breakdown in pancreatic islets and how it changes in type 2 diabetes. The goal is to identify the normal pattern of protein turnover in this tissue and how it gets modified by the cell crosstalk. To address it, her team relies on a different type of laser-scanning microscopes which allow them to see at the cell level and deeper, and to measure the changes in protein dynamics. Shedding light on this highly conserved process in the context of type 2 diabetes contributes to individualised therapy and helps with islet generation efforts – making new islets in a dish able to perform as well as native tissue.

The Oxford Sparks video highlights Daniela’s research methods in an accessible way, hoping to bring our work closer to everyone and to spark more interest in diabetes research.