The University of Adelaide.
Defining the contribution of epigenetics to the intergenerational cycle of type 2 diabetes in Aboriginal people.
Children born to mothers with diabetes in pregnancy are more at risk of developing diabetes and obesity. Given the much higher rates of diabetes in pregnancy amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and the widespread health inequalities experienced by these communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are disproportionately impacted by the negative consequences of being exposed to diabetes in the womb. There is, therefore, a pressing need to identify risk markers in these children to facilitate early prevention of these conditions and that will also provide information about the mechanisms behind how diabetes develops in these children. This study will measure changes in a DNA chemical tag in the blood of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children born to mothers with diabetes in pregnancy to determine how well it predicts future obesity and diabetes risk. We are grateful to Diabetes SA for supporting our research.
Dr Lisa Marie Nicholas leads a research group at the University of Adelaide where she is interested in understanding how a child’s metabolic destiny is determined even before birth by their mother’s metabolic health during pregnancy. This is achieved through studies in animal models of obesity and diabetes in pregnancy as well as in human birth cohorts such as the Pregnancy and Neonatal Diabetes Outcomes in Remote Australia study. Dr Nicholas undertook her PhD under the mentorship of the current Chief Scientist of South Australia, Prof Caroline McMillen and following that completed post-doctoral training in pancreatic beta-cell biology at Lund University Diabetes Centre, Sweden and in developmental programming at the University of Cambridge, UK.