Diabetes gene database launched in WA

In five years' time, Australian researchers aim to know what causes both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, with the help of a new national genetic database that has been set up to collect and study DNA from 3000 Australian families with diabetic children.

Launched this month by Prof Grant Morahan, head of the Western Australian Institute of Medical Research's (WAIMR) Diabetes Research Centre, the study is funded by a AUD$1.78 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council with support from the Diabetes Research Foundation and the University of WA.

Morahan said the Australian Childhood Diabetes DNA Repository differed from other genetic databases in that it is disease-specific, rather than population-specific. Clinics in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will collect saliva samples from families Australia-wide and use them to determine the precise genetic cause of the disease, which are currently unknown.

Studying both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in children also makes this a unique project, Morahan said. In the past, diabetes genetic databases, including one that Morahan set up as part of a worldwide study directed by the US National Institutes of Health, have focused on the type 1 condition of the disease.

However, Morahan said, studying both forms of the disease is critically important. "A WA study has shown the incidence of type 2 diabetes [in children] is increasing by 27 per cent per year; the increase in type 1 diabetes in both WA and NSW studies is 3 per cent per year," he said.

Diabetes in one of its forms currently affects more than one million Australians and it is predicted 366 million people worldwide will suffer from the disease by 2030.

Morahan, who previously discovered the gene IL12B, which is implicated in type 1 diabetes, said he was excited by the fact that in five years the full genetics of the disease will be available. "Whatever we can do to contribute to finding a treatment would be great," he said.