Identifying those at risk of developing complications from diabetes

Professor Sam El-Osta is part of a Danish-
Australian collaboration investigating diabetic
complications. See full story

Danish and Australian researchers are teaming up with the goal of better understanding the relationship between the risks for and actual development of complications arising from diabetes, including diabetic kidney disease (DKD).

“Our goal is to understand the burden, natural history and propensity of the Danish population, with or at risk of diabetes, to develop complications,” they say. “We want to outline the clinical, metabolic and epigenetic correlates of diseases in order ultimately to predict, treat and prevent diabetic kidney disease.” An important associated goal of the group is to find those patients with diabetic kidney disease who need more aggressive treatment. 

Cross-disciplinary research links golden staph to autoimmune disease

Prof. Peleg with his lab group.

Professor Anton Peleg, Director of Infectious Diseases, recently collaborated on a paper published in Nature Communications.

The study found that the body may be fooled by a plasmid-derived protein from some types of Staph aureus (golden staph), resulting in the development of severe autoimmune disease. Plasmids have been associated with antibiotic resistance but this study now links them to autoimmune disease, specifically ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), a severe autoimmune disease caused by autoimmunity to myeloperoxidase (MPO).

Melbourne's scientific collaborations mapped

BioMedVic will be supporting publication of an online interactive research network map produced by Nature Index, which will show output and collaboration in high quality research between institutions in the greater Melbourne region. This updateable map will be based on publications in the top natural science journals tracked by the Nature Index website (www.natureindex.com), which is an open access platform owned by Springer Nature, publisher of Nature, with data published under a creative commons license.