It is estimated that there are now over 180 million people worldwide who have diabetes. This chronic disease, if not controlled, can cause serious health problems including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure and amputation.

A high quality resource, initially funded by the Wellcome Trust and supported by Diabetes UK, has been created with successful recruitment of consented patients with type 2 diabetes and matching controls (non diabetics) throughout Tayside.

This resource is already available to researchers worldwide and is helping to define genetic factors related to diabetes including susceptibility, complications and response to treatment.

This International resource will become more powerful with time and will benefit from continual collection plus the pace of technological progress in the field of genetics research.

The response from the Tayside population has been exceptional and volunteers have participated in clinics, GP surgeries and work places throughout the region. We are now started recruiting in Fife. The participants consent to baseline measuresment-link to data gathered-and anonymous follow up through datasets derived from medical records.

This resource is already available to researchers worldwide and is helping to define genetic factors related to diabetes including susceptibility, complications and response to treatment.

This International resource will become more powerful with time and will benefit from continual collection plus the pace of technological progress in the field of genetics research.