A SOUTHAMPTON-BASED medical research charity is to fund a study to help find a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Hope has provided £10,000 for specially commissioned research into how the condition develops, which is to be carried out at Southampton General Hospital by Dr Neil Hanley.

The study will use state-of-the-art genetic experiments, which will help to identify all the genes that are important in the evolution of the pancreas, and of the cell that is destroyed in type 1 diabetes - the insulin-secreting B cell.

By understanding how these cells develop in the womb, it is hoped the research will advance strategies aimed at regenerating such cells outside the body for transplantation.

Hope's funding for the study will allow the new genetics equipment owned by the Division of Human Genetics at the hospital to be used for the first time.

Hope, which celebrates its silver anniversary year this year, is a multi-disease charity with volunteer groups in Southampton, Winchester and the New Forest.

Ray Kipling, trust director at Hope, said: "We hope that, in the first instance, this will lead to the provision of a treatment for sufferers of diabetes type 1.

"In the long term, it is clear that this equipment will play a very valuable role in the development of cures and treatments for a whole range of other diseases."