Is diabetes getting on your nerves?

Centre of the Cell’s Big Question Lectures are brought to you by top scientists at Queen Mary, in partnership with Centre of the Cell and co-created with young people from our Youth Scheme. They give audiences from age 14 the chance to hear from leaders in science and healthcare about the cutting-edge biology and innovative front-line medicine going on right here in east London.

Doctor Rachel Wilson speaks about innovative ways of studying diabetes in her Big Question Lecture.

Diabetes is a condition that is becoming more and more common. This disease compromises the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose levels. Approximately 10% of the global population will develop type 2 diabetes, and 30-40% of these patients develop neuropathic pain. Neuropathies result when our neurons that can sense pain don’t work correctly. Currently, there is no correlation between how well diabetes is managed and the severity of pain experienced by patients. Using pioneering in vitro stem cell models to develop neurons, Dr. Rachel Wilson has been exploring why this happens.

Dr. Rachel Wilson originally studied Chemistry and Cell Biology at Durham University. In 2018, she joined the Bochukova group at Queen Mary University of London as a Research Assistant and later pursued a PhD, focusing on the genetics of obesity through application of stem cell modelling of the hypothalamus. She is now applying her stem cell expertise within the Clark group at the Blizard Institute, where her research focuses on T2D-associated pain in peripheral sensory neurons.