Departments

Important information:

The diabetes unit is well known for its pioneering research in the field of diabetes since 1986. It is a DBT centre of excellence in foetal programming and has received research grants from Wellcome trust UK, MRC Southampton UK, Dept. of Biotechnology and Indian council for medical research.
The unit performs research primarily in 3 areas
• Characterisation of Diabetes in Indians
• Early life origins for future risk of diabetes
• Clinical trials
Kamalnayan Bajaj Diabetology Research Centre which is specialised to investigate peculiarities of diabetes in Indians. We described the novel finding that the small looking Indians are thin by BMI criteria but fat when you measure body fat, and that this characteristic is present at birth (Thin-fat Indian baby). Maternal nutritional and metabolic factors which contribute to this are considered. We also described that maternal vitamin B12 deficiency and excess folate levels are related to 'foetal programming' of diabetes. This offers a novel approach to reduce foetal programming of diabetes; a trial is now in progress in the adolescent girls and boys in the villages around Pune. Our research activities fit nicely with the activities of the KEM Hospital Research Centre which was started with the vision of improving the health of the population, especially mother and babies by promoting research and local self-sufficiency.
It is not difficult to see why we believe that the health of young girls determines the health of the nation.

Brief statistics and overview of the research studies done so far:

Strengths of the unit:

• Expertise in conducting large community-based cohort studies.
• Enviable bio-repository of blood, tissues and DNA samples from various prospective cohort studies that can help answer many important scientific questions related to causes and prevention of diabetes in Indians.
• Biochemical laboratory of global standards capable of ELISA, RIA and HPLC measurements.
• Deep Freezers
• DXA scanner for body composition analysis
• MRI (Brain, abdomen) image processing and analysis

Consultants / Staff involved:

KEM Diabetes Unit hosts a varied staff comprising of people from all specialities. It includes doctors, consultants, Junior Research Fellows, Senior Research Fellows, Administrative personnel, Laboratory scientists, Microbiologists, Nutritionists, etc.