Professor Colin M Dayan is professor of clinical diabetes and metabolism at Cardiff University. He has been an active researcher in the area of islet and thyroid autoimmunity for over 25 years and currently heads a department of 35 staff with over $10m of external grant funding. He leads the Clinical Engagement and Training Core of the Type 1 Diabetes UK Consortium coordinating the leading clinical research centres in T1D across the UK, chairs the UK Clinical Studies Group in Type 1 diabetes prevention and treatment, coordinates a European Programme Grant on the use of gold nanoparticles in T1D immunotherapy and has been chief investigator on over 15 studies, including 2 first-in-man studies.

Professor David Leslie is professor of diabetes and autoimmunity at Queen Mary, University of London. He has been active in type 1 diabetes research for over 40 years. He is founding Chairman of the Type 1 Diabetes UK Consortium coordinating the leading clinical research centres in T1D across the UK. He has been Principle Investigator of three European consortia funded by the EU including Action LADA (adult autoimmune diabetes); BLUEPRINT (epigenetics of type 1 diabetes) and EXALT (immunotherapy of type 1 diabetes). He performed the first immunotherapy study of diabetes in man and is known for his work with twins and adult-onset autoimmune diabetes.

Professor Mark Peakman is professor of clinical immunology diabetes and metabolism at King’s College London. Mark leads a research team studying type 1 diabetes pathogenesis, and is conducting clinical trials on peptide immunotherapy. Mark is on the Diabetes TrialNet Steering Committee and a member of the Executive; he leads a workstream in the €35M IMI-2 network INNODIA; he is Editorin- Chief of the British Society for Immunology journal Clinical Experimental Immunology (>10 years); and he leads the Experimental Medicine and Therapeutics Cluster in the King’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, with oversight and budgetary responsibility for >20 early stage clinical trial programmes.

John Todd FRS, FMedSci, FRCP Hons, PhD is Professor of Precision Medicine at the University of Oxford (until recently Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Cambridge), Director of the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory (DIL) in the University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, and a Senior Investigator of the National Institute for Health Research. Todd researches type 1 diabetes (T1D) genetics and disease mechanisms with an aim of clinical intervention. In the latest phase of his research, to translate basic genetic and immunological knowledge to treatment and prevention, the DIL has now completed its first (ultra low dose interleukin-2) mechanistic, statistically adaptive, drug dose-finding trial in T1D patients, establishing new and effective methods of trial design, governance, conduct and patient recruitment.

Dr Timothy Tree is a Reader in Immunology at King’s College in London. He has worked on the role of autoreactive and regulatory T cells in type 1 diabetes for over 20 years and was a member of the IDS T cell workshop for 8 years. He is currently involved in large programmes of immune monitoring in the areas of the natural history of T1D and immunotherapy trials in T1D and organizes one of the Immune Hubs in the IMI-2 INNODIA programme and leads the Mechanistic Core of the Type 1 Diabetes UK Consortium.

Professor F. Susan Wong is professor of experimental diabetes and metabolism at Cardiff University. She has been engaged in research in the immunology of diabetes for over 25 years. She currently leads a research group studying the role of cytotoxic T cells, B lymphocytes, and more recently the role of the gut microbiota. In addition, she is interested in the development of immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes and immune protection of beta cells.