The Diabetes Research Connection’s mission is to connect donors with early-career scientists, enabling them to perform peer-reviewed, novel research designed to prevent and cure type 1 diabetes, minimize its complications and improve the quality of life for those living with the disease.

April 7 is World Health Day 2016, and this year’s theme is “beat diabetes”. In recognition of this, we invite you to join us in the global fight against diabetes. Read on to learn about a few ways you can get involved.

Support early-career scientists’ research.

We’ve made it easy for donors and strong proponents of type 1 diabetes research to help fund young scientists with exciting and inventive research project ideas. Currently, we’re raising money to fund two projects. Joseph Lancman, Ph.D., of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, is researching ways to replace insulin producing beta-cells, allowing recipients to live a life free of daily insulin injections, while Sangeeta Dhawan, Ph.D., of UCLA’s School of Medicine, is researching how to create better insulin producing cells with cell regeneration. When you support one or more of these projects, 100% of your contribution goes directly to the scientists.

Submit research project ideas or refer early-career scientists to the Diabetes Research Connection.

Have an innovative idea for a type 1 diabetes research project? We can help you get it funded by facilitating the connection between donors and scientists.

Graduate students, post-docs, instructors and nontenured junior faculty whose work is focused on type 1 diabetes are invited to apply. Grants are up to $50,000 for one year, and scientists receive 100% of what they raise.

Serve on a peer-review committee.

If you’d like to get more deeply involved in the fight to beat type 1 diabetes, consider serving on one of our committees. Our Scientific Review Committee consists of more than 80 diabetes experts from across the country who volunteer their time and expertise to vet each research project we work with for novelty and scientific merit. Our Layperson Review Committees help scientists translate complex and jargon-heavy descriptions into simple and engaging website presentations that donors are likely to fund.

Learn more about serving on a committee here.

Engage online with social media.

Help raise awareness of the research currently being done to cure type 1 diabetes by joining us online. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and help us reach even more people by liking and sharing our posts.