A Personal Mission
Inside Stanford’s Effort to Close a Long-Overlooked Gap in Diabetes Care
Asians make up 60% of the world’s population but represent just 10% of genetic databases and 10% of clinical trials. For Latha Palaniappan, MD, that gap is personal. Her father died of heart disease at 39 without a single traditional risk factor. It is why she helped build the Accelerate Innovation in Diabetes LeVeraging Unique PAthways iN Asians (ADVANCE) program.
The Stanford initiative brings together physicians, geneticists, data scientists, and engineers to study how diabetes and cardiovascular disease look different across Asian populations. By examining South Asian, East Asian, and other subgroups separately rather than averaging data together, the team is uncovering patterns that standard research has long missed.
ADVANCE’s first aim addresses a gap in type 1 diabetes testing: some people test negative for known autoantibodies, making diagnosis more difficult. Researchers are searching for novel autoantibodies in Asian and Asian American populations, and have identified early candidates that now require validation in a larger group of participants. The program’s second aim investigates why type 2 diabetes can develop at a normal body weight in some Asian and Asian American individuals, while its third aim examines the biological pathways the two forms of diabetes share, as well as where they differ.
Latha Palaniappan, MD.
“Precision health is important because medicine is not one size fits all,” Palaniappan says. “The only way we will be able to take better care of our patients is by understanding more fully our world population and the variation that exists.”
To tackle this challenge, the ADVANCE team deploys an impressive tool kit: genomic sequencing, proteomics, metabolomics, continuous glucose monitors, and artificial intelligence. Researcher Ruoqi Liu is developing large language models to help scientists move through complex data faster. Work with glucose wearables has already revealed that a simple curve pattern could one day replace costly diagnostic tests. As Stanford geneticist Mike Snyder explains, “Right now, those tests cost thousands of dollars. If we could do it for a very cheap $5 test, that’d be amazing.”
With a biobank of 10,000 Asian participants now established, ADVANCE is building the evidence base to transform care for Asian communities and beyond.
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2026
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