Emma Hamilton-Williams, PhD

Associate Professor Emma Hamilton-Williams' career focuses on understanding how immune tolerance is disrupted leading to the development of type 1 diabetes. She received her PhD from the Australian National University in 2001 and later trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

Currently an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, her laboratory now focuses on developing an immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes as well as understanding the role of the gut microbiota in as a potential trigger for type 1 diabetes. 

Her laboratory is using nanoparticle technology to deliver an immunotherapy that specifically tolerises the immune cells that cause type 1 diabetes and is working towards a first-in -human trial of this approach. She uses state-of-the-art protein sequencing techniques to probe how disturbances in the gut microbiota of children with type 1 diabetes impacts the function of the gut and the pancreas.

She recently conducted a clinical trial of a microbiome-targeting dietary supplement aimed at restoring a healthy microbiome and immune tolerance with an ultimate aim of preventing type 1 diabetes.