Funding diabetes

Funding of $35 million over five years has been awarded to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to support juvenile diabetes research and improving outcomes for the more than 122,300 Australians who live with Type 1 diabetes.

Funded through the Australian Research Council’s Special Research Initiatives scheme, the funding will support an expansion of JDRF’s Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network (T1DCRN).

JDRF is a leading not-for-profit supporter of global Type 1 diabetes research, investing $1.6 billion in research since 1970 including more than $63 million into Australian research.

The T1DCRN was initially launched by JDRF in 2011 through a $5 million grant from the Australian Government. It is a national collaborative network that currently funds 12 research projects in Type 1 diabetes clinical research and a number of other grants across Australia.

Reportedly the largest-ever single commitment to Type 1 juvenile diabetes in Australia, the aim of the new research initiative is to bring together and build research teams from multiple research disciplines to conduct research into finding a cure for Type 1 juvenile diabetes.

A competitive process will be run to select research proposals for a Network and Research Program, including team-based, cross-disciplinary research projects over the coming months.

Meanwhile National Diabetes Week 2014 (13-19 July) aims to raise awareness of Type 2 diabetes.

Two million Australians are at high risk of Type 2 diabetes and Diabetes Australia will launch a new prevention campaign to raise awareness of the seriousness and prevalence of this condition and encourage all Australians to check their risk.