The News:
JDRF-funded researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology have proven that CD-8–the destructive, renegade player in the immune system that attacks insulin-producing beta cells in mice–is in fact the same T-cell that kills beta cells in humans.
What This Means for the T1D Community:
We know a lot about type 1 diabetes in mice. Researchers have CURED type 1 diabetes in mice. There are people (I’m not one of them) who are tired of hearing about mice.
This discovery is so important because researchers have proven that what they know is true in mice, is also true in humans.
Matthias von Herrath, M.D.
And these guys haven’t proven just anything. What they have observed is at the root of T1D. If we can actually witness the attack of a certain type of cell by another type of cell, at a certain location in the pancreas, we can effectively begin to halt that attack.
And while this next idea is slightly hard to think about, this crucial breakthrough in CD8 is a result, in large part, of a JDRF-run program called nPOD.
NPOD (Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes) is a program in which human cadaveric pancreatic tissue–which is extremely hard to come by–is distributed to the the researchers who will, essentially, make the best use of it.
These guys–immunologists who study a system that has had millennia to make itself complex enough to effectively outwit disease–have made very good use of nPOD.
JDRF’s ability to coordinate programs like nPOD, its ability to assess researchers, its deftness in coordinating the many efforts to cure this disease . . . all of this convinces me that we really are one step closer.
If You Want to Read More:
