Experiment seeks to head off Type 1 diabetes

Researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh are hoping to control type 1 diabetes by curbing the rogue immune cells that cause it, before patients become completely dependent on daily insulin injections tosurvive.

About 3 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, where the body mistakenly attacks and destroys cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, the hormone crucial to converting blood sugar to energy.

This novel vaccine -- made from patients' own blood blocks the '911 call' that dendritic cells send to direct T cells to the pancreas. Just altering three communication molecules on their surface basically confuses and paralyzes the T cells. In mice and monkeys, the reprogrammed cells ended the vicious cycle of a pancreas attack that in turn attracts more T cells to attack again.

In human trials, the team has used donated blood to filter out immature dendritic cells and then reprogram them. Animal experiments have shown that after the cells have been re-injected just inside the skin over the pancreas...the cells somehow find their way back to that organ to start working.

Two competing teams - MacroGenics Inc. and Eli Lilly, and Tolerx Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline - have advanced tests under way

Currently, 15 adult diabetics [are] being injected to make sure there are no unexpected side effects before researchers test if reprogrammed cells might really protect children's pancreas cells

Posted in: Blood sugar, diabetes, Diabetes mellitus, Diabetes mellitus type 1, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Insulin