Focus
Diabetes and metabolic diseases
Group leaders
Group members
A/ Prof. Bronwyn O’Brien
Dr. Najah Nassif
Dr. Binhai Ren
Visiting Prof. Fatima Shad Kaneez
Dr. Janet Lawandi
Ms. Que La (PhD Student)
Mr. Vijit Saini (PhD Student
Mr. Ho Pham (PhD Student)
Ms. Fahmida Abdi (PhD Student)
Mr. Jonathan Citraloen (Co-supervised Masters Student)
About us
Professor Simpson’s group focusses their research on the gene therapy of diabetes mellitus. Specifically, her research is concerned with investigating the possibility of engineering an artificial insulin-producing cell to replace the insulin-secreting beta cells that have been destroyed by the autoimmune process in Type I diabetics. In this she has been successful, in engineering several human liver cell lines to store and secrete insulin to a glucose stimulus. One of these cell lines (Melligen) has reversed diabetes in an animal model and is licensed for development to “PharmaCyte Biotech Inc.” In particular the work now focuses on novel strategies to deliver genes using lentiviral and adeno-associated vector systems with the aim of reversing diabetes. The group has several world first achievements reversing diabetes in rats, spontaneously diabetic mice, humanised mice and pigs. She collaborates on clinical studies, studies linking the microbiome with Type 2 diabetes and the mechanisms behind some cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Collaborations
Within UTS
Associate Professor Sara Lal, Neuroscience Research Unit
Professor Deborah Marsh, Translational Oncology Group
Dr. Rosetta Martiniello-Wilks, Translational Cancer Research Group
Professor Chin-Teng Lin, FEIT
External
Pharmacyte Biotech Inc
Professor Ian Alexander, Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead Children’s Hospital
Dr. Grant Logan, Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead Children’s Hospital
Associate Professor Anand Hardikar, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney
Associate Professor Roderick Clifton-Bligh, Royal North Shore Hospital