Scientists seek vaccine that slows down type 1 diabetes

fer's profile photo   06/16/2009 4:04 p.m.

  
fer
06/16/2009 4:04 p.m.

When regulating glucose, problems such as kidney transplants or diabetic foot would be avoided.

A team of researchers from the Clinical Biochemistry Group of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) works on the identification of proteins that the immune system destroys - and that eliminates the cells that produce insulin - to develop a vaccinethat allows doctors to control type 1 diabetes.

In this variety of the disease, patients lack insulin and today it is still unknown why this occurs."The immune system is confused and recognized as strange cells necessary for the body, and when they are not correct, it destroys them and makes the diabetes not regulate," explains Rubén Varela Calviño, project coordinator.

"Our work is to study what pieces of these proteins - called peptides - are those that the immune system considers strange," he adds.

less insulin

Galician scientists work with GFAP proteins S100ß.Once the peptides were identified, the next step would be to synthesize them chemically -in vitro- and administer them to the patient, "so that the destruction by the immune system would slow down or even stop," argues Varela Calviño.

Being able to keep some of those cells, the patient may need less insulin and/or better control their sugar level."It is a way to stop the incorrect response of the immune system," he clarifies.

These studies have already been tested in animals and in a group of humans in England with other types of proteins.For now none of the patients with whom it has been tested has suffered side effects.

"On the contrary, since it seems to have beneficial effects when conserving small islets of insulin," says the scientist.

Although it has a certain genetic component, type 1 diabetes is not a hereditary disease, which makes detection more difficult.The vaccine that stops or slows down type 1 diabetes could be used as a preventive mode.

"A priori it is not known who will develop the disease and, usually, it is discovered when destruction is already very advanced," says Varela Calviño."When you are thirsty, you urinate a lot and eat and lose weight you have to be alert," he adds.

As for the health system, the project coordinator believes that many complications of the patients could be avoided."This ailment generates renal transplants or amputations of the diabetic foot, so slowing this variation in diabetes many other derived problems could be prevented," he clarifies.

Professor Valera Calviño began this study, in which the Department of Immunology of the University of Vigo and the Meixoeiro Hospital of the Olivic City collaborate, eight years ago in the prestigious King's Collegue in London.

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DiabetesForo
06/17/2009 4:42 p.m.

Was Calviño that director of TVE?: Shock :: d

Another periolistos, in my view the owner does not correspond to the content, the researchers seek the origin of the DM1 in the proteins do not seek to slow down diabetes

I have read something like that a long time, I copy it as the Google Translate is facilitated: Oops:

The most recent research shows that many cases of youth diabetes are caused by infection with a common cold or intestinal virus called Coxsackie B viruses B.

A year ago, researchers in California and Florida reported that a Coxsackie virus can cause youth diabetes.A new and exciting collaboration study shows that most children recently diagnosed with diabetes have infected with the Coxsackie virus.Any of their mothers were infected by the Coxsackie virus, during the last part of pregnancy or the children were infected before arriving with diabetes.This is very exciting because the news, you have to be able to prevent the type of youth diabetes associated with the Coxsackie virus susceptible to vaccinating children against the Coxsackie virus shortly after birth. In youth diabetes, beta cells inThe pancreas, which produce insulin, are destroyed.Since the body cannot produce insulin, blood sugar levels increase due to diabetes. When a germ enters its body, its immune system produces proteins / called antibodies / that give the surface of microbes and kill them.The surface of insulin producing cells in the pancreas has an enzyme called Tag. The surface of the Coxsackie virus has the same protein .So when a Coxsackie virus receives in its body, of making antibodies against the virus and attribute to destroying the virus, but also attribute to the GAD protein in the pancreas and destroys insulin producing cells in genetically susceptible children.

A couple of links in case an anglophone (or how it is said) wants to expand on the Coxsackie:

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