Diabetic Vascular Disease (DVD): Enhancing our understanding of the cause of DVD (360G-Wellcome-211994_Z_18_Z)

The two main forms of diabetes are type I and type II diabetes; type I is an autoimmune disease where the insulin producing beta cells are destroyed by the body’s own immune system, and as a result the body cannot produce insulin. Type II, the most common form of the disease accounts for 90-95% of all diabetes. Both types lead to hyperglycaemia and insulin resistance. These causes overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and via endothelial dysfunction and inflammation, this accumulation of ROS plays a major role in precipitating diabetes vascular diseases (DVD) in these patients. If DVD is not treated the blood vessels will continue to narrow and will eventually become occluded by the deposits of fat. This will lead to ischaemia in the organ which can be fatal if this occurs in the brain or heart. Our overall aim is to better understand DVD at a molecular level and how it is actually caused, and this will be achieved by studying endothelial cells and exposing them to DVD inducing factors and see how they change.