Our research impact

Challenge 

Professor John Wentworth received funding from the Diabetes Australia Research Program in 2022 to develop a finger prick blood test to diagnose type 1 diabetes early, well before symptoms appear. Early detection saves lives and opens the door to prevention. 

Bold idea 

Leveraging additional support from JDRF, Lions Diabetes Research Foundation, Type1Foundation and other donors, he developed and implemented an inexpensive, home-based finger-prick screening test to identify children and young people who are at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes.

Impact 

John was first to show that his new test could make national screening possible. His work has attracted substantial additional funding of $4M from BreakthroughT1D to scale up testing capacity and bring the test into routine clinical use over coming years.   

This simple test will help reach regional and remote communities, improve quality of life, and reduce healthcare costs—while accelerating trials for treatments to eliminate the need for lifelong insulin injections. The impact goes beyond Australia. Countries such as Italy have legislated universal screening, and global demand is growing.  

“Our ultimate goal is to develop capacity to screen every five-year-old child in Australia, identify the 1 in 300 who are at risk and make sure they have access to prevention therapies.” 

~ Professor John Wentworth

Learn more about diabetes research and our research impact.