Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute

Prof. Simon Stewart of Baker IDI in Australia and visiting professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Prof. Karen Sliwa, director of SOCRU and honorary professor at the Baker IDI Institute, have formed a strong collaboration since 2005

The Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute was established in 2008 in Australia following a merger of the
Baker Heart Research Institute and the International Diabetes Institute.

The merger provides a model for scientific research around the world. The new organisation combines the
formidable strength of Baker research into cardiovascular disease and diabetic complications with the
outstanding diabetes research, education and patient care of IDI.

This comes at a time when the problems of diabetes and obesity are widely acknowledged to be at epidemic
proportions in Australia. Baker IDI will open new facilities to:

  • Develop methods for early detection of individuals at risk of the diabetic and cardiovascular
    complications of obesity;
  • House a new metabolic laboratory to develop and evaluate the most effective lifestyle intervention
    strategies;
  • Develop and evaluate the most effective drug therapies for obesity, type 2 diabetes and
    cardiovascular disease when lifestyle interventions fail; and
  • Continue the work of the unit at Alice Springs, which exists to reduce the appalling rates of premature
    mortality in Aboriginal communities, and the stark disparity between indigenous health and that of
    non-indigenous Australians.