From Mechanisms to Precision Medicine in Diabetes

Dear Colleagues,

Diabetes mellitus exhibits substantial heterogeneity in etiology, pathogenesis, and clinical progression. Despite clinical insulin therapy being available for over a century, a definitive cure for diabetes remains elusive. Traditional diagnostic and treatment strategies continue to rely on generalized, one-size-fits-all protocols, which cannot fully account for interpatient variability and frequently lead to suboptimal clinical outcomes. Precision medicine has emerged as a powerful framework to overcome these limitations, offering mechanism-informed, individualized strategies for diabetes prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. However, translating basic mechanistic discoveries into clinically feasible precision approaches remains a critical unmet gap in current diabetes research.

This Special Issue, entitled “From Mechanisms to Precision Medicine in Diabetes”, specifically addresses this translational bottleneck. Differentiating itself from broad diabetes-themed collections that focus solely on general pathophysiology and treatment, this Special Issue centers on how mechanistic insights into disease heterogeneity can advance patient stratification, disease endotyping, biomarker-guided diagnosis, and individualized care. We welcome original research and review articles that explicitly bridge fundamental mechanisms with actionable precision medicine applications. Relevant topics include but are not limited to:

• Molecular and cellular mechanisms driving diabetic heterogeneity, including β-cell failure, insulin resistance, immune dysregulation, metabolic reprogramming, and tissue-specific pathogenic pathways;
• Genetic, epigenetic, and environmental determinants of diabetes susceptibility, disease progression, and variable treatment responses across patient subgroups;
• Biomarker discovery and molecular strategies for improved disease subtyping and clinical stratification;
• Disease heterogeneity profiling, endotyping frameworks, and evidence-based patient stratification systems;
• Mechanism-based precision therapeutics and tailored preventive and interventional strategies;
• Multi-omics, single-cell analytics, and computational approaches that translate molecular mechanisms into precision clinical workflows;
• Diabetes complications, innovative pharmacology, immunometabolism, gut microbiome–host interactions, and regenerative medicine research, only when linked to patient subtyping or personalized clinical management.

By uniting mechanistic research with translational precision science, this Special Issue aims to deepen the current understanding of diabetes heterogeneity and provide robust biological evidence to support stratified prevention, accurate diagnosis, and individualized treatment. Ultimately, this Special Issue seeks to foster the clinical translation of precision diabetes medicine. Both original investigations and comprehensive review articles are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Vincenzo Trischitta
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• diabetes mellitus
• precision medicine
• mechanisms of disease
• β-cell dysfunction
• insulin resistance
• biomarkers
• disease heterogeneity
• personalized treatment
• translational research
• metabolic reprogramming