IT IS likely that exercise and a better diet will not be enough to control diabetes, a researcher into drugs to treat the disease says.

Professor David James, at the Garvan Medical Research Institute, Sydney says diabetes is becoming Australia's most costly chronic disease.

In Adelaide, Associate Professor Allison Cowin is looking into how to reduce disabling scars of burns victims.

Their research jobs are among the "10 Of The Best" projects selected by the National Health and Medical Research Council to highlight the practical scope of the science it funds.

Investigations into conditions including cancer, osteoarthritis and stem cell treatments are among the hundreds of projects which account for the $617 million in government funding distributed by the council this year.

Professor James heads a team at the Garvan whose research into insulin resistance has included investigation of traditional Chinese medicines used for centuries to treat diabetes. But he says research has much further to go to understand the complex links between diet, lifestyle and individual metabolisms which all have a role in diabetes.

It is the long-term and complex nature of research which often makes it difficult for the public to grasp the practical importance of the work their taxes pay for, say Professor Cowin and Professor James. Professor Cowin heads a research team at the Adelaide Women's and Children's Health Research Institute and is investigating the role played by a single protein in the creation of scar tissue which, particularly in children, can lead to chronic pain and disability.

It will take years for the promising research to yield a treatment but it offers significant potential. "There is no point doing research for the sake of research," Professor Cowin said. "We have to get involved in the commercialisation of the technology so that the public benefits."

The NHMRC today will launch a new direction in its funding, a $100 million "partnerships scheme" aimed at building closer links between health service providers and researchers, "to link research to real life".

Warwick Anderson, the chief executive of the council, said the scheme could, for example, bring an aged-care provider and researcher together to develop safe building designs to reduce falls - a significant cause of ill-health and cost to nursing homes.