Research Advisory Board

Professor Angela Shore is the inaugural Vice-Dean Research for the University of Exeter Medical School, and was previously Interim Vice-Dean Research for the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry since 2009. She is the Scientific Director of the NIHR Exeter Clinical Research Facility for Experimental Medicine and Associate Director for Experimental Medicine for the UKCRN diabetes research network.

Professor Shore graduated in Physiology from the University of Newcastle and was awarded her PhD for an investigation of the vascular mechanisms underlying fluid homeostasis in patients with Liver Disease. Following postdoctoral positions at the University of London where she expanded her research into the vascular aspects of hypertension, Professor Shore moved to the Postgraduate Medical School Exeter in 1987 to establish the clinical microvascular research unit funded by the Wellcome Trust. Currently Professor Shore’s work which is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, European Union IMI JU and NIHR investigates novel approaches to the identification of early vascular complications and patient stratification for cardiovascular risk.

She was appointed Professor of Cardiovascular Science in 2000. As the Interim Vice Dean for Research and previously the Director for the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science, Professor Shore played a central role in the research success of the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, driving the research strategy, the appointment of new staff and the development of state of the art facilities. She also led the last three successful RAE submissions. Professor Shore is committed to interdisciplinary research and was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Exeter Science Strategy Theme “Translational Medicine, Personalised Medicine and Public Health” to drive forward this approach. Professor Shore is actively involved in Microcirculation research worldwide. She is Treasurer of the European Society for Microcirculation, and represents Europe on the International Liaison Committee.

Mark Evans is a University Lecturer in the Institute of Metabolic Science and Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Medicine and diabetes at the Addenbrookes teaching hospital in Cambridge (Cambridge University Hospitals NHS FT).

Peter Jones is Professor of Endocrine Biology in the Diabetes Research Group at the Guy’s campus of King’s College London. Peter obtained his PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research (London) studying peptide hormones in the central nervous system. He started working on β-cell function in diabetes as a postdoctoral fellow at Queen Elizabeth College in 1984. He was awarded an R.D. Lawrence Fellowship by the British Diabetic Association, followed by a Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship, after which he took up an academic position as Lecturer in Physiology at King’s. He was awarded the British Diabetic Association R.D. Lawrence Lecture for 1997 and the Diabetes UK Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture for 2015 in recognition of his work on β-cell function. His research interests remain with the β-cell, with current focus on cell-cell interactions within islets of Langerhans, strategies for improving islet transplantation therapy for Type 1 diabetes and novel therapeutic targets for Type 2 diabetes.

Kash Patel is a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow and Consultant Physician in Diabetes and Endocrinology. His main area of research includes understanding the genetics of diabetes with a focus on Monogenic and Type 1 diabetes.

His research uses next-generation sequencing technology and large data sets to improve diagnosis and understanding of monogenic diabetes in humans. He was a Wellcome Trust PhD Research Fellow in prestigious MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit in Dundee where he was awarded his PhD studying the glucose metabolism in the liver.

After his PhD, he obtained Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship to study monogenic diabetes in Exeter with Professor Andrew Hattersley and Professor Sian Ellard.

Dr Katharine Owen is an Associate Professor and Consultant Physician at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM). Her interests are in the areas of investigation of genetic aetiology of diabetes in young adults, identification, characterisation and clinical management of rare kinds of diabetes and building an assessment of aetiology into care pathways for newly-diagnosed young adults with diabetes. She is also involved in clinical trials in OCDEM for newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes through the UK Type 1 diabetes Immunotherapy Consortium.

Prof Semple is a is a diabetologist and endocrinologist based at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh. He is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science, and Dean of Postgraduate Research at the University of Edinburgh. He trained in Biochemistry and then Medicine in Cambridge, with clinical postgraduate training in London and Cambridge, including a PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Sir Stephen O’Rahilly.  Over the past 15 years his clinical and research interests have centred on severely insulin resistant diabetes, lipodystrophy and hypoglycaemia, both genetic and acquired.  Key interests are use of such rare human conditions to improve understanding of pandemic “insulin resistance” and the mechanisms linking it to disease, and on translating findings from the research laboratory into clinical benefits for patients.  Approaches in his group span clinical trials, experimental medicine, and disease modelling in cells and animals.

Susan Ozanne is Professor of Developmental Endocrinology at the University of Cambridge Institute of Metabolic Science Metabolic Research Laboratories and the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit. She obtained a first class honours degree in Biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh, in 1990. She then obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1994. Prior to her current appointment she was a British Heart Foundation Senior Fellow. Previously she also held a Diabetes UK RD Lawrence Fellowship and a Welcome Trust Career Development Fellowship. Her research interests are focused on understanding the mechanistic basis of the relationship between suboptimal early nutrition and later risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Professor Ozanne is the author of over 250 papers on the early origins of health and disease and is an elected member of the council of the Society for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

Prof Mirela Delibegovic is currently the Dean for Industrial Engagement in Research and Knowledge Transfer at the University of Aberdeen and the Director (Diabetes) of the Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Centre.

She obtained her BSc Honours Pharmacology degree from the University of Edinburgh, in 1999, and PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Dundee, MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit (MRC PPU), under the supervision of Prof Patricia Cohen in 2003. She then moved to the States to Harvard Medical School for her postdoctoral research and received the American Heart Association fellowship for her work on protein tyrosine phosphatases in obesity and diabetes.  In 2007, she returned to UK on the RCUK tenure-track fellowship at the University of Aberdeen. Prof Delibegovic sits on several national funding committees, including Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation and is passionate about career development of staff and students, public engagement in research, academia/industry collaborations and knowledge transfer.

Prof Delibegovic’s research for the past 20 years has focused on the causes and consequences of development of diabetes and the complications associated with diabetes. Her laboratory is particularly interested in co-morbidities such as atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy, diabetic foot ulcers as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and NASH. In recent years, she has been investigating the molecular link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease and how these may be affected by different nutritional interventions.

Victoria is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Bioengineering at Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant in Diabetes, Endocrinology and General Internal Medicine. Her research interests are in neuroendocrinology and the gut brain axis as applied to the treatment of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.  She was the recipient of the first Diabetes UK Harry Keen fellowship.  Her lab has established longitudinal imaging of pancreatic islets, which has led to ground breaking insights into the coordinated behaviour of the islet as a functional unit.  She has also studied the physiological effects of combination gut hormones and bariatric surgery on food reward processing (fMRI), glucose metabolism and energy expenditure in humans. She has developed novel imaging techniques to investigate brown adipose tissue physiology and is working on complex vagal deafferentation models to investigate gut-brain signalling, with a view to discovering novel drug targets for obesity and diabetes. She is committed to making clinical academia more inclusive and has won the Julia Higgins award for her "powerful advocacy for female academic staff, and her formal and informal mentorship of junior academics."

Professor Ketan Dhatariya graduated from the University of London in 1991 and did his diabetes and endocrinology training in and around London. For 2 years during his training he was also a part time General Practitioner in the evenings. He took some time out of his training to spend a year doing intensive care medicine and anaesthetics. After he finished his diabetes training in 2001 he went to do a 2 year research fellowship in endocrinology at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA. He was appointed as a consultant in diabetes, endocrinology and general medicine at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital in 2004, and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia in 2019.  

He is a full time NHS clinician and his predominant areas of interest are inpatient diabetes – in particular peri-operative diabetes care, the management of diabetes related emergencies, and the ‘diabetic foot’. He leads one of the largest foot clinics in the East of England.

He has several national roles in the UK. He is currently the Chair of the Joint British Diabetes Societies Inpatient Care Group where he has led or co-authored several national guidelines on the management of various aspects of inpatient diabetes care including the guideline on peri-operative diabetes care. He is the Chair of the Examining Board for the UK Specialist Clinical Exam in Diabetes and Endocrinology, as well as Chair of the newly developed European Board Examination in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He is the President of the Diabetes and Endocrine section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is the Section Co-editor for diabetes for www.endotext.org. He is an Associate Editor of Diabetic Medicine and BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.

Dr Dhatariya has over 150 peer reviewed publications, and has published over a dozen book chapters on inpatient diabetes, peri-operative diabetes care or on the diabetic foot.

You can find more by visiting www.norfolkdiabetes.com 

Mr John Casey (MB ChB, PhD, FRCS(Glasg), FRCS(Ed), FRCS(Gen Surg), FRCP Edin) is a Consultant Transplant Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Honorary Reader at the University of Edinburgh. He is Director of the Scottish National Islet Transplant Service and Lead Clinician for Organ Transplantation in Scotland. He is also Chair of the UK Islet Steering Group and Advisor to the Scottish Government on organ transplantation. Mr Casey co-chairs the Scottish Donation and Transplant Group and is Vice Chair of the European Pancreas and Islet Transplant Registry. His research background is in transplant immunology, in particular immune modulation using monoclonal antibodies. His principal research focus is now on islet transplantation encompassing islet and beta cell regeneration, immune modulation and enhanced engraftment of human islets using both co cellular transplantation and encapsulation techniques. He has a close collaboration with the bioengineering department at Strathclyde University into bioprinting/encapsulation and imaging of human islets and also bioprinting of other cell types in particular hepatocytes and cholangiocytes (in collaboration with the Department of Surgery at Cambridge University and the Sanger Institute). In addition to abdominal organ transplantation, he has a clinical interest in advanced laparoscopic surgery.