Potential Vaccine for Type-1 Diabetes Shows Promising Results in Clinical Trial

Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine report that they are now close to finding a vaccine for diabetes type-1.

People with diabetes type-1 have difficulty breaking down sugar in body as their immune system keeps attacking the insulin-producing cells. Insulin controls sugar level in the body. High blood sugar can lead to serious damage to heart, eyes, kidneys and nerves. People diagnosed with type-1 diabetes need to take insulin for the rest of their lives.

In the present study, researchers showed that the immune system could be stopped from attacking the cells.

The study included 80 people who were either given the vaccine or a placebo. Researchers found that people on vaccine suffered less destruction of beta cells which produce insulin than the control group.

Also, the blood tests of the participants showed that they had better functioning beta cells than the control group.

The vaccine works by shutting off parts of the immune system, researchers said.

"We're very excited by these results, which suggest that the immunologist's dream of shutting down just a single subset of dysfunctional immune cells without wrecking the whole immune system may be attainable. This vaccine is a new concept. It's shutting off a specific immune response, rather than turning on specific immune responses as conventional vaccines for, say, influenza or polio aim to do," said Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of pediatrics and of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford, according to a news release.

CD8 cells are guardian cells that patrol the body looking for rogue or foreign cells. These cells recognize self proteins from non-self. Current hypothesis is that precursors of beta cells called proinsulin trigger a response from these CD8 cells.

In this study, researchers deigned the vaccine to shut down the immune response to proinsulin. Researchers manipulated  a piece of DNA containing a gene for proinsulin. This way, the special class of immune cells that digests the vaccines gives an anti-inflammatory signal to CD8 cells and partly shuts them off.

Participants in the study were given weekly injections for three months which resulted in the blood sample showing fewer white blood cells. Researchers add that the efficacy and safety of the vaccine can be established only after conducting further trials with a large study group.

The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.