Type 1 Diabetes Cure Soon

Leading Type 1 Diabetes Doctor Predicts Cure In Next 7 Years

Dr. Camillo Ricordi, one of the world's leading scientists in diabetes cure-focused research, thinks we will defeat the disease in the next three to seven years Miami Herald MIAMI, Fla. — Dr. Camillo Ricordi considers himself a diabetes freedom fighter. Ricordi, the director of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, is considered one of the world’s leading scientists in diabetes cure-focused research. “The search for a cure is a full-time job,” said Ricordi, 57, who has been searching for a cure for the degenerative disease for more than 25 years. “It has to be something to consume you completely.” In his office near Jackson Memorial Hospital, he keeps framed photographs of his most compelling Type1 diabetes patients near his desk, as a reminder of why he continues the crusade. One photograph is of former Miami Heat star Ray Allen’s son, Walker Allen, who was diagnosed with Type1 diabetes when he was 17 months old. There is no known cure for Walker and the 382 million people diagnosed worldwide with diabetes. Of those, 5percent have Type1 diabetes, which primarily affects children and young adults. In Type1, the body’s immune system destroys pancreatic cells that make insulin, the hormone needed to regulate the body’s blood sugar. People with Type1 diabetes must have daily insulin injections or be on an insulin pump to survive. Ricordi thinks that in the next three to seven years there will be a cure for Type1 patients. “It’s not a prediction — it’s a promise that I make to patients. We will defeat this disease for sure,” Ricordi said. “Depending on how many obstacles we hit, and regulatory complexities and cost, it could take more than 10 years, depending, but we’re getting there.” At the Continue reading >>

Phase 2 Clinical Trial For Type 1 Diabetes Reaches Halfway Treatment Point

The Sanford Project: T-Rex Study, a Phase 2 clinical trial conducted collaboratively by Sanford Health and Caladrius Biosciences, Inc., (Caladrius), has reached the halfway point for enrollment and treatment. The project is studying the potential of CLBS03, Caladrius' cell therapy consisting of each patient's own regulatory T cells, or Tregs, to help the body fight type 1 diabetes. So far, 56 of a planned 111 participants have been treated. An interim analysis of early therapeutic effect will occur after the six-month post-treatment follow-up visit of the first 56 subjects, with results expected to be announced in late 2017 or early 2018. The Sanford Project: T-Rex Study enrolled 19 participants in the first cohort of this phase 2 trial. A planned pause from August to November 2016 allowed the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board to review the safety of the study until that point, and it was recommended to begin enrolling the second cohort of participants. Following this review, the minimum age for participation was lowered from 12 to 8. Sanford sites in Sioux Falls and Fargo, N.D., together with 10 other sites around the country, are accepting qualifying participants. Kurt Griffin, M.D., Ph.D., director of clinical trials for the Sanford Project, and Fargo-based pediatric endocrinologist Luis Casas, M.D., are the study's principal investigators. Individuals with type 1 diabetes experience a loss of insulin-producing beta cells. The Sanford Project: T-Rex Study is exploring if expanding the body's supply of Treg cells can help prevent the immune system from mistakenly destroying insulin-producing beta cells. Participants are randomized to either the treatment or placebo groups. For those randomized to the treatment group, the participant's own Treg cells are extract Continue reading >>

Type 1 Diabetes - In Search Of A Cure

Since Novo Nordisk was founded more than 90 years ago, the company has been committed to improving the lives of people with diabetes. Nothing would change the life of a child with type 1 diabetes more than a cure for this lifelong serious condition, but is a cure just a dream – or a potential reality? Worryingly, the incidence of type 1 diabetes is growing, and unlike type 2 diabetes, no one really knows why. Yet type 1 diabetes is rarely in the spotlight, as the world focuses on the type 2 diabetes pandemic instead. “It’s a matter of numbers,” points out Dr Matthias von Herrath, head of Novo Nordisk’s type 1 diabetes research unit in Seattle, US. “Yes, there are many more cases of type 2 diabetes, but we can’t ignore the special needs of the children and adults with type 1 diabetes.” A complex disease Novo Nordisk has for many years been conducting research into delaying the onset of type 1 diabetes. “This is no small challenge,” explains Matthias von Herrath. “It’s only in the last five years that we’ve begun to understand the underlying mechanisms behind this disease. One reason is that the human pancreas isn’t as accessible as a mouse pancreas due to its location in the body. It’s also a sensitive organ that doesn’t react well to interference, so it’s difficult to derive information from it – and that inhibits our understanding of what causes type 1 diabetes.” What is known is that, in a person with type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system is triggered, which results in the body producing lymphocytes which attack – and destroy –the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Multiple factors are thought to play a role in the onset of the autoimmune reaction, including the environment and viruses. In addition, there is a Continue reading >>

The Long Road To A Cure

Checking blood sugar levels with a finger-stick device. “Well, I hope for the best cause I’m 26 and I’ve been type 1 for like 2 to 3 years. I’ve been looking for a cure and a way out of using needles every day. I will say that it’s made me healthy, but I just want to be the old great person I was before this all came along into my life. … Right now I finally got health insurance from my job and I’m thinking about getting the pump but I just don’t like the idea. Well anyway, I hope the best in your research and for a day that I don’t have to use a pump or needles anymore.” Finding a cure for type 1 diabetes has been a roller-coaster of high hopes and deep disappointments. At the time of the great discovery of insulin, people thought that surely a permanent cure couldn’t be far off? Decade by decade we learned more about this complex disease and how to control it, so that diabetics could live long and productively. Yet close to a century after that great breakthrough, living with type 1 is still a formidable challenge, and the promise of a real cure seems to retreat into the indefinite future. Diabetes is unlike other diseases where the cause is unknown and a cure might not be easily recognized. We know what conditions cause diabetes and we know how to recognize a cure, but still none has been found. In diabetes, the parameters are clearly defined: a therapy that results in normal blood sugars all the time is a cure. This makes it all the more frustrating when the available therapies are so imperfect. What Is a Cure? People define a “cure” for type 1 in different ways. Some insist that the only true cure would be to eliminate the cause—to somehow turn off the immune system malfunction that attacks the insulin-producing beta cells. Much effort i Continue reading >>

Researchers Study Cure For Type 1 Diabetes In Stem Cell Transplantations

More DUARTE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Some type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients can be cured from the disease, at least for a number of years, with a stem cell transplant — those were the results of a clinical trial monitored by City of Hope’s Bart Roep, Ph.D., the Chan Soon-Shiong Shapiro Distinguished Chair in Diabetes and professor/founding chair, Department of Diabetes Immunology. The results were published recently in the journal, Frontiers in Immunology. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: “This means we can cure type 1 diabetes, be it with a risky therapy — although one that is also very successful in cancer, and one for which City of Hope is a world-renowned expert, with more than 13,000 patients having received similar treatment for blood cancers,” said Roep, director of The Wanek Family Project for Type 1 Diabetes, which aims to find a cure for T1D in six years. “We now understand stem cell transplants can succeed in treating diabetes for some, but not in others, and we can predict either outcome before the therapy is administered by ‘reading’ the immune signature of the patient with a novel nanotechnology that I developed.” An international team of researchers, including Roep, conducted the trial in Brazil. It showed that autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT), which uses a person’s own stem cells, increases C-peptide levels — that show how much insulin is being made by the pancreas — and induces insulin independence in patients with T1D. This is possible because the transplanted stem cells are able to balance the immune system. The study also aimed to understand why some patients saw long-term clinical benefit from the transplantation while others did not. Twenty-one T1D patients who Continue reading >>

Could Future Vaccines Cure Type 1 Diabetes?

For years there has been talk about developing a vaccine for type 1 diabetes, but is it actually possible? While an effective vaccine to cure or even treat type 1 diabetes still remains out of reach, researchers believe that we are not far off from developing one. Many researchers would urge you to remain cautiously optimistic about a vaccine becoming available anytime soon. However, some studies, being conducted around the world, are showing promise for the development of a diabetes vaccine. You may be wondering, why a vaccine? To understand why diabetes researchers are looking to develop a vaccine, it may be best to examine what we know about type 1 diabetes first. What is Type 1 Diabetes? Type 1 diabetes, unlike type 2 diabetes, is an autoimmune disease. Also known as juvenile diabetes because it tends to develop in childhood, type 1 diabetes causes the body to attack itself. In the case of autoimmune diseases, the body’s immune system, designed to protect our body from foreign invaders, malfunctions and attacks our own cells. While there are many forms of autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, type 1 diabetes is one of the most common. In the U.S. alone it is estimated around 1.25 million people have type 1 diabetes. This condition occurs when beta cells are mistaken for invaders and attacked by the immune system. Beta cells are cells in the pancreas responsible for producing insulin. As more and more beta cells are eliminated, the body begins to lose the capacity to produce insulin. Although type 1 diabetes can be treated through regular insulin injections, the injections can be painful and inconvenient. Researchers hope that a vaccine will be able to reduce the need for regular injections or cure the disease altogether. How a Vaccine Would W Continue reading >>

Researcher May Have Found A Cure For Diabetes

The most common form of treatment for Type 1 diabetes involves monitoring glucose levels and injecting insulin several times a day. Ending the world’s diabetes epidemic could be one step closer, with a promising new technique curing the condition in mice. Scientists at the University of Texas announced the breakthrough, which uses a novel approach that may eliminate Type 1 diabetes and see painful insulin injections become a thing of the past. University of Texas Health Science Center doctors used a virus as a carrier to introduce insulin-producing genes into the pancreas of rodent subjects. Professor Ralph DeFronzo said researchers altered cells so they secreted insulin, but only in response to glucose — mimicking the behavior of the body’s beta cells. This study bypasses the autoimmune system by altering other pancreatic cells so they can co-exist with immune defenses — unlike beta cells, which are rejected in Type 1 patients. At the moment, Type 1 diabetes is treated by monitoring glucose levels and injecting artificial insulin several times a day. While technology has made management of the condition easier, a cure has been elusive — until now. The patent’s co-inventor, Professor Bruno Doiron, said the results had never been seen before. “It worked perfectly,” Doiron said. “We cured mice for one year without any side effects.” Doiron predicted the same low-risk response in humans. “If a Type 1 diabetic has been living with these cells for 30, 40 or 50 years, and all we’re getting them to do is secrete insulin, we expect there to be no adverse immune response.” DeFronzo said the same method of treatment has been approved almost 50 times by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat various conditions, including rare childhood diseases. Whi Continue reading >>

Researchers May Have Just ‘cured’ Type 1 Diabetes With Stem Cells

If successful, this new device utilizing stem cells will be the “functional cure” for type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a tough condition—over 42 million people in the world have to keep up with daily treatments and periodical injections in efforts to manage it. Even then, the brain, heart, and cardiovascular system are put at risk for the sake of type 1 diabetes treatments. For nearly two decades, researchers in the healthcare industry have tried finding a way for stem cells to replace traditional treatments. They have worked endlessly to figure out how to get stem cells to function inside the body. That could all be changing soon if one San Diego-based medical device company, Viacyte, succeeds in developing a device that uses stem cells to treat, and in a way cure, the condition for good. The PEC–Direct Implant Viacyte has developed a credit-card sized implant called PEC-Direct which uses pancreatic progenitor cells—derived from stem cells—that can mature inside the body into specialized islet cells that are destroyed by type 1 diabetes. The implant is placed just below the skin and releases insulin when blood sugar levels get too high. In August 2017, two people with type 1 diabetes were the first to have the PEC-Direct implanted in hopes that the stem cells will treat their condition. A third recipient is expected to receive the implant later this year. “If it works, we would call it a functional cure,” said Paul Laikind, President and CEO of Viacyte. How It Works Once implanted, the pores in the outer fabric of the device allow blood vessels to work their way in, nourishing the stem cells. After three months, the stem cells become islet cells which then monitor the body’s blood sugar, producing insulin when needed. “It’s not truly a cure bec Continue reading >>

Has A British Man Really Been Cured Of Type 1 Diabetes?

I have been living with type 1 diabetes for 25 years now. The relentlessness of type 1, and the fact that I will probably live with this non-preventable condition for the rest of my life never goes away, but I have almost made peace with it. A few days ago, I saw something that gave me pause. “British man with type 1 diabetes to receive tests after coming off insulin,” read Diabetes.co.uk’s headline. The article goes onto say that, “Daniel Darkes, from Daventy in Northamptonshire, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes seven years ago. But his recent tests have baffled doctors as his pancreas has shown signs of working properly again.” My first thoughts upon reading this were, “this can’t be true,” and “what’s the real explanation here?” There are many types of diabetes including type 2, LADA, and monogenic. Maybe he actually had one of those types instead of type 1. Usually, tests can determine this quickly though, so why was it not the case with Dan? I live in the UK and I wanted to get to the bottom of things. I managed to get in touch with ‘Miracle Dan’, as he’s been called by his friends. Although he is saving the specific details of his recent test results from the U.S. for an upcoming exclusive interview with another media outlet, he spoke to me and answered some of my questions about everything that has been happening. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your diabetes. When were you diagnosed? I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes back in February 2011 at the age of 23, after just leaving the army. I started a new engineering job and within two weeks of starting, I noticed the traditional symptoms of type 1 diabetes: thirst, weight loss, blurry vision, and a lot of vomiting. I collapsed and was taken by ambulance to hospital where I wa Continue reading >>

New Types Of White Blood Cell And Stem Cell Treatment Therapies Are Exciting Doctors

Could insulin shots and pumps become a thing of the past? As reported through an online article published on Channel 2’s CBS New York page recently, there’s some exciting news on the horizon for those who suffer from Type 1 Diabetes. The television’s medical correspondent Doctor Max Gomez was attending a conference held at the Vatican, where the announcement regarding the breakthrough was announced. Researchers are highly optimistic that two new Type 1 Diabetes treatment therapies will soon be able to shut down the processes of this auto-immune disease. Type1 Diabetes is a condition in which the sufferer’s own immune system will attack the cells within the pancreas that produces insulin.* These cells are called beta cells, and even if you replace those that have been destroyed the immune system will attack those as well.* But now researchers are re-programming the defective parts of the immune system that mistake beta cells for invaders.* These cutting edge studies include a new development in white blood cell therapy as well as stem cell Type 1 Diabetes research and treatment.* About The White Blood Cell Therapy In clinical trials, test patients’ blood sugar stabilized due to the isolation of regulatory T cells, also known as “t-regs.” T-regs are a type of white blood cell that malfunctions in sufferers of Type 1 Diabetes. But when t-regs are grown in the lab, then given back to the patient, it appears this type 1 diabetes treatment may reset the fragile balance within the immune system and prevent the destructive auto-immune response.* About The Stem Cell Type 1 Diabetes Treatment Another kind of approach is also showing promise in re-balancing the immune systems of Type 1 Diabetics. Dr. Yong Zhao at Hackensack University Hospital in New Jersey has devel Continue reading >>

Stem Cell Implant Is Being Trialled To “cure" Type 1 Diabetes

A groundbreaking attempt to "cure" Type 1 diabetes with stem cells began last week. Embryonic stem cell implants were given to two people, one in the US and one in Canada, with high-risk Type 1 diabetes. The researchers hope that this will help the patients manage the condition. The stem cells, developed by private company ViaCyte, are implanted underneath the patient's forearm, where they take about three months to mature into islet cells. In the pancreas, these cells are responsible for the production of insulin. In people with Type 1 diabetes, these cells are attacked by the body’s own immune system. “If it works, we would call it a functional cure,” Paul Laikind of Viacyte told New Scientist. “It’s not truly a cure because we wouldn’t address the autoimmune cause of the disease, but we would be replacing the missing cells.” A smaller implant has already been trialled on 19 people for safety and the company expects to extend the trial to 40 more people later this year, in order to understand both the safety and efficacy of the full-size implant. ViaCyte would like to get preliminary results during the first half of 2018 and to know if the system works between six and 12 months later. “Islet transplants have been used to successfully treat patients with unstable, high-risk Type 1 diabetes, but the procedure has limitations, including a very limited supply of donor organs and challenges in obtaining reliable and consistent islet preparations,” trial investigator James Shapiro, from the University of Alberta, said in a statement. “An effective stem cell-derived islet replacement therapy would solve these issues and has the potential to help a greater number of people.” If a success, the implant will improve the lives of the patients as they won’t Continue reading >>

Study At University Of Wisconsin Uses A Stem Cell Treatment For Type 1 Diabetes

Study aims to learn whether treating newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetics with adult stem cells can either slow or stop the progression of their disease, thereby reducing or even eliminating insulin dependence. Study of diabetes treatment under way at UW, elsewhere 608-252-6125 [email protected] A study at UW Hospital and others across the country is testing an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes: giving adult stem cells to people recently diagnosed in hopes of stopping the progression of the disease. The approach involves stem cells taken from the bone marrow of donors and grown in a lab. The cells, infused into patients intravenously, are thought to reduce the inflammation that causes the patients to stop producing insulin, researchers say. Insulin, a hormone, is needed to process sugar. People with Type 1 diabetes must take insulin shots or use insulin pumps to stave off kidney disease, blindness, amputations, heart disease and other serious conditions. The hope is that the new treatment could reduce or eliminate their need for insulin, though that remains unproven. John Markwardt, a UW-Madison student, became the first person in Wisconsin to enroll in the national study Thursday, when he received an infusion at UW Hospital. A third of participants receive a placebo, and Markwardt doesn’t know if he got a fake treatment or a real one. But the 20-year-old from Wausau is hopeful the procedure will help. “I could become totally independent or less dependent on insulin,” he said. Markwardt learned he had diabetes in March, after his vision become blurry and he had to urinate frequently. Driving home with friends from a spring break trip to Florida, he had to make an unusual number of bathroom stops. The day he got home, Markwardt used the blood glucose meter Continue reading >>

Scientists Believe They're Close To A Cure For Type 1 Diabetes

Scientists believe they’re closing in on a cure for Type 1 diabetes, and perhaps making daily insulin shots a thing of the past for patients, according to studies published Monday. Researchers from MIT, Harvard and Boston Children’s Hospital said they’re on the verge of developing replacements for pancreatic cells that are mysteriously destroyed by a patient’s own body — thus making it impossible to make insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. Scientists, writing in the journals Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology, said they’ve engineered material from brown algae that could work for up to six months at a time — in a huge relief from daily doses of insulin, whether by injection or insulin pump. “We are excited by these results, and are working hard to advance this technology to the clinic,” said Daniel Anderson, an MIT chemical engineering professor. Type 1 diabetes, previously known as juvenile diabetes, afflicts about 1.25 million Americans, and about 200,000 of them are under 20, according to a CDC report in 2014. Type 1 diabetes is believed to have a genetic connection and is not related to weight or lifestyle, as is Type 2 diabetes. “Encapsulation therapies have the potential to be groundbreaking for people with (Type 1 diabetes),” said Julia Greenstein, vice president of discovery research of the JDRF, formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. “These treatments aim to effectively establish long-term insulin independence and eliminate the daily burden of managing the disease for months, possibly years, at a time without the need for immune suppression.” Continue reading >>

New Encapsulation Device Could Boost Stem Cell Treatment Results In Type 1 Diabetes

Scientists at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) have designed a device meant to enclose future insulin-producing stem cells that could render transplant therapies more efficient. This type of technology is called encapsulation and supports the development of working islet cells in the body of people with type 1 diabetes by protecting them from autoimmune attack. The new implantable device, developed by Tejal Desai and her colleagues at UCSF’s schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, serves as a thin protecting coating for the new cells. Once inserted under the skin, the encapsulated cells can sense and communicate with their environment through the porous external membrane of the device. This lets oxygen in and out of the cells and enables responses to changes in blood glucose as well as the release of insulin while they are kept safe from immune reactions. This kind of immuno-isolation device is promising, as it allows people to get the benefit of the cells without having to suppress their immune system through life-long courses of drugs that come with serious side effects, including infection and cancer. Progress is also being made in newer encapsulation devices like this one with the use of specific biomaterials that reduce risks of fibrosis (the build-up of scar tissue) at the transplant site and improve islet function. The membrane of this particular device is also made of nanopores, as opposed to larger pores, to ensure that the cells cannot infiltrate other tissues and facilitate their removal. Desai's cell encapsulation device attracted the attention of biotechnology companies working on research advances in type 1 diabetes and has just recently been licensed for use by the American biotech company Encellin. The new device will be integrated into E Continue reading >>

Researchers May Have Found A Way To Reverse Type 1 Diabetes

Image Point Fr/Shutterstock A diagnosis of type 1 diabetes means a lifetime of constant diligence. Unlike type 2 diabetes, type 1 usually develops early in life. Those diagnosed have to check blood sugar several times a day and take insulin as needed; the process is difficult, expensive, and potentially dangerous. That helps explain the excitement about a potential cure for type 1 diabetes using an already approved treatment. Doctors diagnose more than 18,000 children and teens with type 1 diabetes every year, according to the CDC. These kids lack the ability to make enough insulin, the hormone that processes blood sugar. Using insulin injections to control blood sugar with insulin is tricky because diet, exercise, and stress can quickly alter levels. Without enough insulin, kidney, heart, and nerve damage can be the result. Get too much, and blood sugar levels will plummet dangerously low. (This is the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.) Researchers in Israel have tried treating type 1 diabetics with an immune system protein called alpha-1 antitrypsin (alpha-1)—it helps target germs. Normally, insulin gets lower and lower over time in diabetics, but extra alpha-1 seems to help the body produce more. Researchers gave 12 recently diagnosed type 1 diabetics an alpha-1 drip once a week for eight weeks in a study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. For a year and counting following treatment, two of the participants have been making more of their own insulin. Another three saw only minor decreases—which is a good sign. “Compared to the natural course of the disease, which is downhill, even a flat line is considered success,” says study co-author Eli C. Lewis, PhD, biochemical and pharmacology professor at Ben-Gurion University of the N Continue reading >>