The University of the West Indies (UWI) has signed a groundbreaking pact with a West African academic institution to conduct research to find a cure for Type 2 diabetes mellitus, also known as adult-onset diabetes.This country, which has one of the world’s highest rates of amputations resulting from diabetes, will become one of two homes for the in-depth study that will be undertaken by the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana and the soon-to-be-established TransAtlantic Centre of Excellence for Translational Research based at the Cave Hill Campus of the UWI.Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology in the Faculty of Medical Sciences Dr Damian Cohall broke the news during an interview with Barbados TODAY on Thursday.He said the historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which was signed earlier this year by the academic institutions’ Vice Chancellors – Professor Sir Hilary Beckles of UWI and Professor Johnson Boamping of UCC – but is only now being made public here, is focused on fixing the amputation problem in Barbados as well as in Ghana which has a similar issue.Dr Cohall, who is also the Director of the Bachelor of Health Sciences and the PhD Pharmacology programmes in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, identified two main initiatives that will flow from the MOU.“One, the development of a TransAtlantic Research Project which is looking at identifying a cure for diabetes – and not only diabetes, type 2 diabetes mellitus but also looking at a potential cure for poor wound healing among diabetic patients.