Diabetes & Metabolism
Head – Mark Cooper
Diabetes is a serious public health issue and the dramatic rise of diabetes in the community is a major concern. The complications of diabetes include kidney disease, eye disease and vascular disease. Diabetes is a major factor in cardiovascular disease and the most common cause of kidney failure in the western world.
The main aim of this division is to understand why people develop complications from diabetes, a high blood glucose level, and the mechanisms responsible for those complications. Research feeds directly into the development of new treatments to target and prevent the development of diabetes-related disease. Mark’s group has recently secured a multi-million dollar grant from the prestigious US-based National Institutes for Health to explore the causes of glycation - a biochemical process brought on by an excess of sugar – and atherosclerosis in Type 1 diabetes.
The current focus of this division is the development of new techniques for early diagnosis of complications, primarily gene and proteomic approaches to diagnosis.
Mark himself has received many awards and is an eminent researcher in the field of diabetes and its complications. His work has profoundly improved our understanding of this disease and has been of direct benefit to millions of sufferers around the world. His distinguished body of research has led to new treatments for sufferers of diabetes that are today considered standard. He was involved in very early studies using Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in diabetic complications, now a routine treatment, and was also involved in the original description of microalbuminuria, now used as a tool in predicting diabetic complications.
His work on the combination of ACE inhibitors and A2 antagonists for use in the treatment of diabetic kidney disease has seen this therapy become widespread and is reducing the risk of end-stage renal failure.
Mark’s group derives funding from the New York-based Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as well as from NHMRC grants.
