Australian Foundation for Diabetes Research

The Australian Foundation for Diabetes Research:

a. supports the development of a therapy that will allow the growing number of insulin-dependent Australians to cease having to inject insulin multiple times each day of their lives;

b. helps educate the wider community about the development of therapies to overcome the need for insulin for many young people with diabetes 

Between 2002 and 2009, the Foundation provided funds to the Diabetes Transplant Unit, Prince of Wales Hospital / University of New South Wales (Director: Professor Bernie Tuch) for:

 1. Research projects:

      i    Development of human embryonic stem cell lines;

      ii   Isolation of insulin-producing cells (islets) from the pancreas of donor humans;

      iii  Placing human insulin-producing cells inside microcapsules to overcome the need for insulin injections in diabetic   recipients;

     iv  Isolation and transplantation of the human fetal pancreas as a therapy for diabetes.

2. Purchase of equipment (encapsulation machine)

3. Payment to researcher for teaching course on how to grow human embryonic stem cells - Dr Kuldip Sidhu

4. Support for a post-doctoral fellow - Dr Marie Best

5. Travel funds to support the further training of researchers (Drs Jayne Foster & Wei Wu) and visiting research fellows (Dr Anand Hardikar from India and A/Professor Rennian Wang from Canada)

6. Scholarship for PhD students - Vijay Vaithilingam & Mathi Appavoo 

Between 2009 and 2011, the Foundation provided funds to the Diabetes Research Unit at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, University of Western Australia.  This was for a research project to understand the molecular pathways involved in the differentiation of pancreatic progenitors, derived from human embryonic stem cells, into mature insulin-producing cells. The Chief Investigator was Professor Grant Morahan. 

Since 2009, the Foundation has provided funds to CSIRO Funds for a research project to showthat encapsulated pancreatic progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells will normalize the sugar levels of diabetic recipients. The Chief Investigator is Professor Bernie Tuch

Mr Steven Nemes

Professor Geoffrey Symonds

Dr John Gallo

This is handled by Director of the Foundation, Mr Steven Nemes, of Harris Freidman Lawyers - snemes@hflawyers.com.au

These are tax deductible