Welcome to our community
Western Sydney Consumer group
Diabetes & Islet Biology Group, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Western Sydney University
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Our community
Western Sydney is one of Australia’s most culturally and socially diverse regions, and it also carries a substantial burden of diabetes and chronic disease. Our community includes consumers and families living with diabetes and autoimmune diseases whose experiences shape the questions we ask and the partnerships that we build together in a co-designing, co-developing environment. We work with investigators that drive projects across our diverse communities in metro as well as rural NSW.
Nothing about us without us
Our Type 1 Diabetes research over the past several years has been grounded in lived experience. It is shaped by close personal connections - with relatives and students/staff living with diabetes and or autoimmune diseases, and this perspective informs regular co-development in our lab meetings, where consumer priorities help guide research direction, relevance, and design. Several of our consumers are also researchers who are now leading this work to drive a change in how we would diagnose and manage future disease.
Autoimmunity
An autoimmune disease is a condition where your immune system accidentally attacks your own body. Studies in UK (across over 22 million individuals) indicate that autoimmune diseases affect about 1 in 10 people. Although the immune mechanisms are shared, diagnosis remains disease-specific, relying on combinations of autoantibodies, pathology, clinical criteria, and sometimes genetics, which cautions against a one-size-fits-all. Our research will build new knowledge in how future risk of autoimmune diseases, such as T1D, is predicted and managed.
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