Helen Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow at St Vincent’s Institute in Melbourne. She is head of the Immunology and Diabetes Unit. Her research is focussed on prevention of pancreatic beta cell destruction and identifying the pathways of beta cell death in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, her research aims to understand and prevent the interaction between beta cells and immune cells. In type 2 diabetes, she is interested in the stress and cell death pathways activated by high glucose concentrations, and testing the role of these pathways in vivo. Her work is being applied to humans through the transplantation of human islets isolated from organ donors by the Tom Mandel Islet Transplant Program in Victoria to reverse type 1 diabetes in severe cases.