Lessening Health Inequalities in Type 2 Diabetes Through Innovative Drug Repurposing

In this Lessening Health Inequalities in Type 2 Diabetes Through Innovative Drug Repurposing project at University of Dundee, the student willstudy the mitochondrial impact of PK activators on wild-type L6 cell and those lacking PKM2.

In this Lessening Health Inequalities in Type 2 Diabetes Through Innovative Drug Repurposing project at University of Dundee , the student will use Seahorse methodology to investigate pyruvate kinase (PK) M2 activators as a potential novel therapy for direct alleviation of muscle cell insulin resistance, something that no clinically-approved drug currently achieves.

Context

Most older type 2 diabetes (T2D) drugs were developed through pre-clinical studies and then trials that model T2D as it is experienced by older white people. These drugs tend to be less efficacious in currently difficult-to-treat T2D, such as can often be experienced for example, by younger people and/or ethnic minorities. Recently, relative lack of muscle mass, by accelerating onset and severity of insulin resistance, has been highlighted as a new additional target that should be exploited to address currently difficult-to-treat T2D.

The student will study

• material from knockout and wild-type animals.