One in Six Billion

In this episode we talk to Janette and her daughter Alice who were both correctly diagnosed with HNF4A MODY having been initially told they had Type 1 diabetes. The diagnosis not only allowed them to stop insulin but also explained the mystery of two of Jeanette’s children that were born as large babies and collapsed soon after birth with low blood sugar. Andrew explains how it was discovered that...

Mary Lee was thought to have Type 1 diabetes for over 3 decades; she was finally diagnosed with HNF1A MODY and was able to stop her insulin injections and get excellent blood sugar control with a sulphonylurea tablet.  We hear from Ewan Pearson how sulphonylurea tablets were found to be excellent glucose lowering treatment when Andrew’s clinical observations of his HNF1A MODY patients were followe...

Kevin Colclough describes how the genetic testing in diabetes has improved over the 2 decades he has worked in the Exeter NHS diagnostic lab.  His work means now over 60 types of single gene diabetes are looked for in one sequencing test. Bev Shields talks about how she developed the amazing MODY calculator that uses common clinical characteristics to work out how likely a person with diabetes is...

Mary Humphries tells how her son Dan was diagnosed with diabetes aged 16 and it was assumed he had type 1 diabetes and treated with insulin.  On insulin he had terrible problems with low blood sugars frequently losing consciousness and not managing to concentrate at school or at home.  Mary was very worried that he was getting worse on the insulin and asked about genetic tests because she had rece...

Dr Nick Thomas talks about Type 1 diabetes in the older adult. In an iconoclastic study he showed most cases of Type 1 diabetes occur in adults rather than children. In older adults it is very hard to recognise as 98-99% of people with diabetes have Type 2 diabetes. Older adults with Type 1 diabetes have just as rapid a decline in their own insulin and need all the expert care offered to children....

Simon Goode was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes aged 28.  He explains how it took 6 months of feeling unwell before it was realised he had Type 1 diabetes instead. Exeter Professor, Angus Jones, has done research showing that mistakes in the diagnosis Type of 1 diabetes are common in the older adult and offers solutions to help doctors get the diagnosis right.  Send a text

Dr Jean Claude Katte explains how in Sub Saharan Africa diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of Type 1 diabetes in children and young adults is so much harder than in Europe.  He discusses with Maggie and Andrew his own exciting research that has shown that around 60% of African children with diabetes do not have the typical autoimmune Type 1 diabetes seen in over 90% of children with diabetes in E...

We hear from Mendy Korer about the enormous challenges of living with a child who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes aged 11 months. Matt Johnson, a research fellow in Exeter talks about his exciting work understanding what makes the immune system destroy the insulin making beta-cells in very young children.  Send a text

Professor Richard Oram had the innovative idea of turning complex analysis of the genetic changes  into a single number that estimate the likelihood of developing Type 1 diabetes. He explains to Andrew and Maggie how this has helped diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes and is being used around the world in studies aiming to prevent or delay diabetes in children. Send a text

Professor Partha Kar has made sure the technical advances in measuring blood sugar are available to everyone living with Type 1 diabetes in the UK.  Partha had to overcame massive hurdles to make sure the technology was not just available to a privileged few. He discusses with Maggie and Andrew his inspirational leadership style and philosophy that have helped him to move mountains in the NHS. Vot...

Jean Dudderidge and Jill Epton talk about what it has been like to live with Type 1 diabetes for over 50 years. They discuss the massive advances in the measurement of blood sugar over the decades and how they now benefit greatly from continuous glucose monitoring. Send a text

Moira Murphy and Mark McCarthy talk about how a unified UK team of scientists came to be world leaders in decoding the genetic susceptibility to Type 2 diabetes. Send a text

We talk to Tim Frayling and Rachel Freathy about how they discovered the “Fat gene”.  Working with Oxford, the Exeter team showed a genetic change near FTO predisposed to obesity. This was the first and largest common genetic change altering weight.   Send a text

In this special episode, we hear from Professor Tim Frayling who was Andrew and Sian’s first PhD student in 1995. He rapidly became the head of the analysis for the genetic susceptibility for Type 2 diabetes.  His leadership has made Exeter an international leader in polygenic trait genetics. Send a text

In this special episode, we hear from Professor Sian Ellard who, like Andrew and Maggie, started in Exeter in 1995.  Sian set up the Exeter molecular genetics laboratory from scratch.  Through Sian’s leadership, this laboratory became world leading for both research and NHS diagnostic testing. Send a text

In this episode, Maggie and Andrew talk to Imran Bashir about the difficult journey he and his family have been on since his daughter was born without a pancreas.  They also hear from star scientist Dr Elisa De Franco about the long and challenging scientific journey to solve the genetic mystery of why her pancreas did not develop. Send a text

In this episode, Maggie and Andrew talk to Dr Elisa De Franco, the Exeter based genetic scientist whose research has discovered more genetic causes of diabetes than anyone else in the world. Send a text

In this special episode Andrew Hattersley talks with co-presenter Maggie Shepherd to identify what led to her joining the Exeter team in 1995 and ending up becoming the leading nurse for monogenic diabetes with a role combining clinical care, research and education  Send a text

In this episode, Maggie and Andrew start by talking to Carsyn Underwood and her mums Karla and Donna about Carsyn’s diagnosis of neonatal diabetes and how she got the right treatment very early and had an the excellent outcome as a result,.   They go on to talk to Professor Tim McDonald, a top NHS laboratory scientist, who has been researching into how we can make sure everyone is diagnosed early...

In this episode, Maggie and Andrew talk to Dr Pam Bowman, the doctor scientist, whose research has greatly advanced our understanding of neonatal diabetes. Pam showed treatment with sulphonylurea tablets control the glucose excellently in the long term and she transformed our understanding of how thinking, and development are altered by the change in the potassium channel gene. Send a text

In this episode Maggie and Andrew talk to Dame Frances Ashcroft the remarkable Oxford scientist who has dedicated her life to understanding the key role of potassium channel in insulin secretion by the pancreatic beta-cell.  Her work was crucial both before and after the Exeter genetic discovery in neonatal diabetes Send a text

In this episode, we hear from Laurie and Mike Jaffe from Chicago, USA.  They spread the word about neonatal diabetes to over 100M people around the world by an inspirational media campaign focused on their daughter, Lilly and how the diagnosis and resulting treatment change transformed her life.  Send a text

In this episode we hear from Agnes Graja and Helen John, two of the national team of Genetic Diabetes Nurses that spread the news about neonatal diabetes across the UK. They identified and improved treatment in insulin-treated adults who had been diagnosed with diabetes in the first 6 months of life. Send a text

In this special episode Maggie Shepherd talks with co-presenter Andrew Hattersley exploring what led to him ending up as a research scientist and diabetes consultant in Exeter in 1995.  They go back into how he became a doctor and what took him into research including surprising revelations about a transformative time in Africa as an 18-year-old!   Send a text

In this episode we hear about how sulphonylurea tablets were discovered to be an unexpected. and remarkably effective, new treatment for neonatal diabetes.  Maggie and Andrew talk to Professor Ewan Pearson, the  doctor scientist, who worked with doctors around the world to prove how good this treatment was and how it worked. More on www.1in6b.com Send a text