Do you have diabetes? - Educational poster

Student - Timothy Tree

Supervisor - Zaynab Hussain

Professor Timothy Tree and his lab group focus on autoimmune diseases including Type 1 diabetes (T1D) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. They aim to understand differences in the blood, why immune imbalances occur and try to create therapies to correct these imbalances. They focus specifically on the role of T cells. Their long-term aim is to create therapies that prevent these diseases. We focused on T1D, creating a poster aimed at 10–14 year olds who have T1D to be displayed in hospitals and schools. This is because they are the target demographic that are most commonly diagnosed with T1D; therefore, this information would be most relevant and useful to them. This poster would also target their siblings who do not have T1D and their families. Mainly, the poster aims to educate children on T1D, how it develops, using analogies and characters, inspire them to pursue this research in the future, introduce them to Tree’s Lab research and encourage them and their siblings to donate their blood samples to analyse genetic differences to further this field of research. The poster also aims to encourage their parents to donate to the JDRF or participate in fundraising events.