The TREND project (Telemedicine pRoject for screENing Diabetes and its complications in rural Tamil Nadu) is part of the 
research project. The TREND study was mentioned in the November Newsletter of The Telemedicine Society of India
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held an online PhD student Symposium where our students in Dundee and India presented their research findings and progress of their studies. The Symposium was held over two dates, 20th and 28th October with students giving presentations to the whole INSPIRED team.
Funding of around £75,000 from NIHR has been provided to install high-powered solar panels at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) research facility in Siruseri, India.
Chennai : February 25th 2020. In order to study the current status of diabetes in rural Tamil Nadu, the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) and the University of Dundee have taken up a joint research collaboration to screen 15,000 people in 25 selected villages in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu. The programme called is the TREND (Telemedicine pRoject for screENing Diabetes and its complications in rural Tamil Nadu) project has already screened over 8000 people till date. Headed by Professor Colin NA Palmer, Associate Dean for Research and Chair of Pharmacogenomics, School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee and Dr.V.Mohan, Chairman and Chief Diabetologist – Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialties Centre and Director MDRF, the TREND project focuses on finding the burden due to diabetes and its complications in rural Tamil Nadu and providing novel solutions for its management. read more
The press conference created much interest with many write-ups in the press as well as in the electronic media (Television and Social media) including The Times of India, Trinity Mirror and The Hindu. 
Professor Colin Palmer and Dr V Mohan, Directors of the NIHR Global Health Project held an Investigative meeting in Chennai on Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th February.
Principal Investigators from both Scotland and India were in attendance. Each of the five Work Packages Leveraging large scale health record data, Genetic epidemiology and pharmacogenetics, The Retinome as a clinical phenotype screening tool, Integrative predictive algorithms, and Next generation telemedicine, from the INSPIRED project were discussed.
We were also joined by collaborators from Afghanistan and Ethiopia.
Dr Aziz Amir is heading a next generation precision medicine pilot study in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Dr Adem Dawed the UK PI leading a Diabetes Epidemiologist Network in Sub Saharan Africa (DENSSA) pilot was joined by Mr Assefa Baye from Ethiopia. The project will develop the network and evaluate the barriers and solutions to implementing next generation precision medicine for diabetes in Butajera, Ethiopia and Enugu State, Nigeria.
The two-day event culminated with an “Into the Future” discussion as to how we progress with the research and the successful collaborations. It was agreed we co-host an MDRF/INSPIRED meeting in early 2021 to mark MDRF’s 25th anniversary and the closing of the first phase of the INSPIRED project.
Dundee’s NIHR funded Global Health Research Unit , headed by Professor Colin Palmer is to work to improve outcomes for diabetes patients in Afghanistan while training local researchers to carry out future studies into the disease.
The unit will collaborate with the Dr Aziz Amir at the Moraa Educational Complex to investigate the incidence of diabetes in patients attending the outpatient department of the Kabul hospital with the aim of offering sustainable solutions for individuals with the disease.
The Moraa Educational Complex is a female-focused project addressing the need for a safe educational environment for Afghanistan woman from kindergarten through to adulthood with a focus on medical training, helping to address the need for female healthcare workers in the country.
In 2017, the University of Dundee was awarded a £7 million grant from the National Institute of Health Research Global Health programme to establish INSPIRED, a major new Scotland-India clinical partnership to combat diabetes.
https://www.dundee.ac.uk/stories/agreement-sees-dundees-diabetes-expertise-exported-afghanistan