CBS Seminar: Ewan Pearson

Bio: Ewan Pearson is Professor of Diabetic Medicine at the University of Dundee, Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee. He is also associate director of the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre, where he leads the Diabetes Data Catalyst. Ewan has been awarded the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Croom Lecture, the Diabetes UK RD Lawrence Lecture and Dorothy Hodgkin Lecture, and the EASD Minkowski Award.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Ewan’s research interests have been in the phenotypic and genotypic determinants of drug response in diabetes, and in stratified approaches to the management of diabetes.  Using the extensive prescribing and health record data linked to the GoDARTS bioresource his group have identified novel genetic variants associated with glycaemic response to metformin, sulphonylureas and GLP-1 Receptor Agonists.  Ewan’s earlier work established that patients with monogenic diabetes did not need insulin treatment (Lancet 2003, NEJM 2006), paving the way for 1000s of patients to transition off long term insulin treatment onto oral medication.   Ewan has recently been awarded £2.8M from the Chief Scientists Office to implement precision diabetes care within NHS Tayside.

Abstract: People with type 2 diabetes often receive multiple drug treatments – to lower glucose, to treat or reduce risk for cardiovascular disease, and for their other common comorbidities.    Precision treatment aims to allocate the drug to an individual that is most efficacious but associated with the least harm.  There are many factors that influence an individuals response to a drug – many of which can be captured in their clinical phenotype or by physiological measures.  However, the impact of genetic variation is also important.  For some drugs – such as clopidogrel or statins – genetic variation has been long known to have a large impact on adverse outcomes yet this is rarely incorporated into clinical care.  For glucose lowering drugs there is increasing evidence for genetic variation impacting drug outcomes.  In this talk, I will highlight recent studies showing how genetic variation matters for people with diabetes, and establish a framework for incorporation of genetic data into clinical decision making.