A major finding representing an important step toward a potential cure for type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes has been made by a research team at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. The team, led by Matthias von Herrath, MD, an internationally recognized expert on the molecular basis of type 1 diabetes, used a combinatorial treatment approach in laboratory mice and found it reversed recent-onset type 1 diabetes in the majority of animals tested.
The researchers’ study, which combined 2 therapies (anti-CD3 antibody and proinsulin peptide) already being tested individually in human clinical trials, produced better efficacy, longer-lasting results, and fewer side effects in the preclinical trials in mice than either therapy has shown alone in the human studies. The researchers hope to begin testing the combination therapy in human clinical trials later this year.
Richard A. Insel, MD, executive vice president for research at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, described as “exciting and important” the finding of increased efficacy of reversal of recent-onset type 1 diabetes in animals that received a combination of systemic anti-CD3 antibody and intranasal proinsulin peptide compared to therapy with the antibody alone.
(Source: La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology Web site, liai.org, accessed May 2, 2006.)
