Fight against diabetes
INSPIRED is a four-year-long partnership between the University of Dundee’s Global Health Research Unit on Global Diabetes Outcomes Research and Madras Diabetes Research Foundation. This programme uses medical records to deliver improved care in diabetes along with extensive patient data set (covering over 450,000 Indian diabetic patients) collected by Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centres in India. The project seeks to improve diabetes outcomes by better understanding who gets diabetes, how it progresses, why some people respond better than others to treatments, and why some patients develop complications.
I believe the programme will give a comprehensive outlook related to diabetes in my research
Sushrima Gan
Doing their bit
Currently, Sushrima is pursuing a PhD in Medicine at the University of Dundee. As a biostatistician, Sushmira’s role in the project has been to study the phenotypic and genotypic determinants of drug response towards managing diabetes in different ethnic populations. Her work has helped several INSPIRED outputs, including research that has helped identify distinct forms of type 2 diabetes in South Asians. This has important implications for predicting the risk of complications and focusing attention on individuals with the highest risk of developing them.
Aditya’s PhD research looks at retinal images as biomarkers to predict vascular complications among type 2 diabetic patients. Retinal photography is used to screen the severity of retinopathy associated with diabetes. He is also exploring what other valuable clinical information these photographs contain to show they are helpful for early diagnosis of vascular complications.
In the programme, a group of inter-disciplinary students are exploring different aspects of complications of diabetes
Aditya Shivram Nar
Choosing this path
It was close personal encounters with diabetes that inspired both Sushrima, a Master’s in Biostatistics from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Aditya, a Master’s of Science graduate in Public Health to join the programme and help people with diabetes productively.
“Both my parents had diabetes, and I have seen first-hand how devastating the disease can be. Watching on as family members lost their eyesight, suffered kidney damage and experienced other complications due to diabetes left an indelible mark,” shares Sushrima, who has an undergraduate degree in Statistics from the University of Calcutta.
Aditya’s parents were also patients of diabetes. With an undergraduate degree in Pharmacy from the University of Mumbai, Aditya has amalgamated his education in a way that would help him contribute in solving the bigger issue of fighting diabetes.
Both students applied for the programme as it would give them a comprehensive outlook related to diabetes in their respective research fields.
Getting enrolled
The students did not face any specific problem while getting their visas or the travel. “I guess the attainment of visas was not a tumultuous process since the programme is specifically designed for India,” says Sushrima.
Getting inspired
This project plays a significant role as it deals with phenotypic data of diabetic students in India as well as genetics, which helps take a step forward in the precision therapy approach to treat diabetes. Aditya says, “The course has a group of inter-disciplinary students, post-docs, and investigators, all of which are looking at different aspects of the complications of diabetes. Therefore, the course has given me unique exposure that will be very important for the future.”
For Sushrima, the regular journals clubs and group discussions have helped her in overall development as a researcher.
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