Study targets type 1 diabetes

SEATTLE — Researchers will soon begin testing a way to stave off diabetes by tripping up the immune system with the help of mouse cells.

Scientists at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle will be part of a national effort to see if they can stop type 1 diabetes — or at least delay its progression — by derailing the immune cells that attack the body's insulin producers.

The experimental therapy "has a reasonable shot at being the first building block toward a cure," said Dr. Bill Hagopian, director of PNRI's work on the therapy. In early trials, the treatment has enabled patients to continue making a portion of the insulin they need for up to two years.

Type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile diabetes, afflicts more than 1 million people in the United States. It develops when the immune system destroys the cells that produce insulin, which the body needs to process sugar.

Most cases of type 1 diabetes develop in childhood or young adulthood, and patients become dependent on injected insulin for the rest of their lives. Complications include heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney damage and amputations. Many sufferers have shortened lives.

Scientists in Seattle and four other cities are testing the notion that if they treat patients within about six months of a diabetes diagnosis, they can prevent destruction of all the insulin-producing "beta" cells.

"We want to get in there early to extend the 'honeymoon' phase," when about 10 percent to 25 percent of the patient's beta cells are alive and still functioning, Hagopian said.

The treatment would not be effective for the more-common type 2 diabetes, which usually begins in adulthood and affects more than 19 million people in the United States. It is not caused by an immune-system problem but develops when the pancreas gradually loses its ability to produce insulin.

Researchers at PNRI will test the type 1 treatment on 13 newly diagnosed patients, ages 15 to 30. They will be among a total 70 patients nationwide, including at Columbia University; the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Colorado; and the University of Florida. The Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle also is planning to join the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health.

And that's where the mice come in.

The treatment relies on the rodents to help make a drug containing the protective antibodies: