Organising Committee
Parth Narendran
Professor of Diabetes Medicine, University of Birmingham
&
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
Parth's research interest focusses on understanding the autoimmune destruction of insulin secreting beta cells that lead to type 1 diabetes and exploring how this process can be modulated. He is part of a national effort to explore the feasibility and acceptability of early surveillance programmes for pre-type 1 diabetes and is also exploring which therapies are best tested in the prevention arena. He has developed an international reputation for exploring whether exercise can be used to modulate the autoimmune process in type 1 diabetes. He is the Chair of the MS Prevention Taskforce for the Multiple Sclerosis Society to explore treatment parallels across other conditions with similarities to type 1 diabetes.
Parth leads the Diabetes Research Unit and the Type 1 Diabetes clinical service at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications including publications that have been cited by international bodies on Type 1 diabetes and its management. He has served on the Diabetes UK Research Committee and was previously on the Research Advisory Board of the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation and Regional Advisory Committee for the NIHR RfPB programme. He was previous chair of the Academic subcommittee of The Association of British Clinical Diabetologists having led and supported the setting up of its first research grant funding scheme and national Diabetes Update training programme for doctors specialising in diabetes and endocrinology.
Parth reviews for all the major national and international diabetes journals. He contributes to the NIHR Horizon Scanning, and NICE Medical Technology reviews for new therapies.
Colin Dayan
Professor of Diabetes and Metabolism, 125 Anniversary Chair, Dept of Immunology and Immunotherapy,
University of Birmingham, UK
Colin Dayan trained in medicine at University College, Oxford, and Guy’s and Charing Cross Hospitals in London, UK before obtaining a PhD in the immunology of Graves’ Disease in the Laboratory of Marc Feldmann. He then spent a year as an endocrine fellow at the Massachussetts General Hospital in Boston, USA before completing his specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology as a Lecturer in Bristol. In 2010, he was appointed to the Chair of Clinical Diabetes and Metabolism and Head of Section at Cardiff University School of Medicine and in 2020 as part-time Senior Clinical Researcher in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. From 2021-2025 he was Director of the Joint Research Office for Cardiff University and Cardiff and Vale Health Board and he has also served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland. In 2026 he was appointed as a 125 Anniversary Chair at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Prof Dayan has a long established interest in translational research in the immunopathology of type 1 diabetes promoting progress to “insulin free T1D”. He has published first-in-man clinical studies on the development of peptide immunotherapy and the use of nanoparticles in T1D as well as pioneering the use of lymph node and injection site sampling to monitor the response to therapy. Since 2015 he has been a leading member of the UKT1D-Research Consortium which has hosted more than 15 clinical trials in early T1D over 30 sites. He is currently leading on novel trial designs including the T1D Plus platform across Europe and Australia to rapidly test combinations of therapies. In collaboration with the Critical Path Institute, he led the TOMI consortium of 21 clinical trials to define the relationship between C-peptide preservation and clinical endpoints and build an FDA/EMA approved clinical trial simulation tool. He is now seeking to define novel endpoints in preclinical T1D as part of the EDENT1FI European programme. Prof Dayan is a committed advocate to finding ways to bring beta cell preservation and delaying the need for insulin therapy into routine clinical practice. In this regard he supported the application for regulatory approval of Tzield to the FDA in 2021 and is working with colleagues to introduce immunotherapy and population screening into the UK.
Renuka Dias
BMedSci MBBS FRCPCH PhD
Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist, Birmingham Women and Children's Hospital
Dr Renuka Dias is a Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist working at Birmingham Women and Children’s Hospital and is an Honorary Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Birmingham. She is the Clinical Lead for the National Highly Specialised Service for Wolfram Syndrome (Children) in Birmingham.
Research:
Type 1 Diabetes: Screening and management for early Type 1 Diabetes and health inequalities in Type 1 Diabetes. Renuka is the Chief Investigator for the IMPACT-T1D and NHS-FIT studies. She is the lead Paediatrician for the ELSA study (https://www.elsadiabetes.nhs.uk/) and a part of the EDENT1FI consortium (https://www.edent1fi.eu). She is funded by the NIHR.
Rare Diseases:
Renuka is part of the Life Arc Funded Acceleration of Rare Disease Trials consortium (WP1: Facilitating Recruitment and WP4: Accelerating Trial Delivery).
Theodora Papanikolaou
Clinical Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Theodora Papanikolaou graduated from the School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece in 2011. She completed Specialty Training in General Paediatrics in the UK in February 2023 and has since worked as a Senior Clinical Fellow in the Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes department at Birmingham Children’s hospital.She currently works as a Clinical Research Fellow at the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, based at the University of Birmingham, and is pursuing a MRes (Master of Research) degree.She is passionate about teaching and quality improvement in healthcare. She is a full instructor for the Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS) and Newborn Life Support (NLS) courses.
Lauren Quinn
Clinical Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Dr Lauren Quinn is a diabetes and endocrinology resident doctor in the West Midlands and a clinical research fellow at the University of Birmingham. She is a PhD candidate and her thesis is testing and developing a general population, paediatric type 1 diabetes screening programme in the UK to explore the feasibility and acceptability of screening.
