Richard Oram

If someone could have a blood sample taken it would be sent to our lab here and have the genetic risk score tested, what we think is better for people with diabetes both in the UK and around the rest of the world is if their local hospital could do this test on a bench-side machine.

This is a genetic test which essentially means that it measures genetic risk factors for type 1 diabetes and it measures very simply and cheaply in a way that's easy to do, and it means that when a patient presents with diabetes we could measure that genetic risk and if the genetic risk is higher for type 1 diabetes it means they're very likely to have autoimmune type-1 diabetes, and if the genetic risk is low for type 1 diabetes then they're much more likely to have type 2 diabetes, the kind of diabetes associated with obesity.

If you get this wrong, if you label someone who actually has type 2 diabetes as type 1 they'll be left on insulin for the rest of their life when they don't need it. Even worse, if someone with type 1 diabetes is mislabelled as having type 2 diabetes then they may not be treated with the insulin they need and they may suffer life threatening complications.