16 September 2024

 Congratulations to our very own Professor Elif Ekinci on launching the Australian Diabetes Clinical Trial Network (ADCTN)!

ADCTN, a collaboration between the Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations (ACADI) and Diabetes Australia, is designed to increase the number of diabetes clinical trials in Australia while also fostering nationwide collaboration among researchers. This will greatly benefit people living with diabetes by enabling the testing and availability of new treatments and interventions.

Head of Diabetes Research at Austin Health and ACADI Director, Elif explains that the network will support diabetes researchers by fostering collaboration to advance research and by providing expert review and feedback of clinical trial protocols and grant funding applications.

“Clinical trials are essential to inform new ways to prevent, detect, or treat diabetes. By advancing our understanding of how different treatments work and evaluating their impact, clinical trials play a crucial role in improving the care of people living with diabetes. Their results contribute to the development of more effective, safer healthcare options and help inform evidence-based practices in medicine,” says Elif.

As part of ADCTN, Austin Health will be able to participate in more clinical trials over time, increasing our capacity to provide greater support and access to new, life-changing therapies for our patients.

She adds, “People living with diabetes are at the heart of everything we do. This initiative incorporates inputs from individuals with lived experience to ensure that the trials meet community needs.”

Elif shares, “I am really excited about this opportunity. It has the potential to make a huge difference to the lives of people in Australia. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Austin Health for fostering such a great, collaborative research/hospital ecosystem.”

This wonderful achievement brings together researchers nationwide to advance research in diabetes treatments and technologies. Through this collaboration, we remove research silos and bring great research work together for the benefit of our community.