In April 2019, I'm going to paddle a surf ski 20km on Bude Canal.  My Mum had type 2 diabetes and complications that often go with it.  I'm doing this in her memory on what would have been her 83rd birthday to raise much needed funds to support some exciting research taking place at the University of Exeter. 

Professor Lorna Harries and Nicola Jeffery at University of Exeter Medical School have been looking at the mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes.  After discovering evidence that a proportion of the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin aren’t dying but are changing into other types of cells, Lorna and Nicola wanted to find out the reasons why the cells alter their identity in this way. But they’ve gone above and beyond this and have discovered that this transformational process can be reversed, which could soon lead the way to treatments that will cure the condition.

Lorna and Nicola have developed a new scientific methodology using human pancreatic beta cell lines, which have been grown in the laboratory without the use of any animals. This is cutting-edge research at its best – their exciting discoveries would never have been made if they had carried out conventional experiments on mice as the mouse pancreas, and how the cells within it communicate, is configured different to ours.

AFR UK is driving ethical, evidence based research to fight, prevent and cure human diseases by investing in the most innovative research which focuses on humans without the use of animals, creating a future where animals are no longer used in medical research, where scientists focus on new techniques which are human relevant, giving better outcomes for everyone, people and animals alike. With your support, we can advance human health and end the use of animals in medical research, forever.