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We are delighted to support ‘immunometabolism’ research at the University of Oxford with a grant of £149,990 to the Choudhury Lab.
Led by Professor Robin Choudhury, the team at Oxford recently uncovered that bone marrow stem cells are reprogrammed by glucose so that they don’t respond to lowering glucose. This addresses the long-standing paradox of why treating high glucose in patients with diabetes does not reduce the risk of heart attack and offers new opportunities for diagnosis and treatment. This is especially important as patients with diabetes are much more vulnerable to heart attacks, and are twice as likely to have heart disease.
Our funding will aid diagnostic tests for two years to explore how to use these new findings for patient benefit. The new understanding is that the need is to focus on stem cell rehabilitation, rather than managing glucose levels.
We are excited to support this work as it has a huge potential and reach, including for public health and global approaches to diabetes risk and management in due course. We wish the team at the Choudhury lab the very best with the project!