Emma Hamilton-Williams Australian Diabetes Society and the Australian Diabetes Educators Association Annual Scientific Meeting 2016

Emma Hamilton-Williams

Associate Professor Emma Hamilton-Williams’ career focuses on understanding how immune tolerance is disrupted leading to the development of the autoimmune disease type 1 diabetes. She received her PhD from the Australian National University in 2001 and later trained as a postdoctoral fellow in Germany and the USA. In 2012 she started a laboratory at the Frazer Institute, University of Queensland with funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and NHMRC grants. Currently an Associate Professor, her laboratory focuses on understanding the role of the gut microbiota as a potential trigger or therapy for type 1 diabetes. She is studying microbiome development in children at-risk of type 1 diabetes starting from pregnancy through infancy and childhood, to understand how lifestyle and diet interact with the microbiome as risk factors for disease progression. She recently conducted a clinical trial of a microbiome-targeting dietary supplement aimed at restoring a healthy microbiome in T1D. Her laboratory uses state-of-the-art sequencing technologies and microbiome transplant studies to identify new microbiome derived factors that can be developed into new treatments or interventions to one-day prevent this disease.