DCU receives €5m grant to pursue diabetes-detection research

Dublin City University is leading the development of a new diabetes detection system, and has received a €5m grant to pursue its work.

The grant was awarded to the DEXLIFE project through the Horizon 2020 programme.

DCU is part of a pan-EU consortium working on tackling the problem.

Dr Donal O'Gorman from Bishopstown Cork, who is leading the project, said the objective was to determine whether an individual is vulnerable to diabetes before the symptoms appear.

"The current ways we have of identifying diabetes, other than with a blood glucose level, are really coarse. We need better, more precise, ways of detecting it," he said.

"Even before blood glucose levels start to rise, we need to have markers that better predict if a person is going to go on and develop diabetes."