Did you know?

Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a life-long autoimmune disease that affects over 140,000 children and adults in Australia. It usually begins in childhood or early adulthood, although it can occur at any age. It can even strike infants as young as 8 weeks old. Diabetes is a disease that occurs when there is either not enough insulin produced by the body or the insulin is not working as it should.   In a healthy person, when a meal is consumed, the food is broken down into glucose and absorbed into the bloodstream. At the same time, the hormone insulin is released from the pancreas into the bloodstream. Insulin works like a key; it unlocks the cells of the body to enable the glucose to travel from the bloodstream into the cells where it is needed for energy. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly turns on itself, destroying the islet cells within the pancreas that normally produce the insulin. Without an external supply of insulin, the body literally starves because it cannot process food. With the analogy above, it’s as though the key has gone missing, and so the lock cannot open.   The reason why the body’s immune system turns on itself, resulting in type 1 diabetes, is not fully understood. It appears that genetic and environmental factors are to blame for this disease. 80% of people who develop the disease have no family history of type 1 diabetes.

A person with type 1 diabetes endures over 14,500 injections and over 20,000 blood glucose tests in 10 years with the disease.

Diamantina’s research into type 1 diabetes

Researchers in the Dendritic Cell Biology Group, led by Professor Ranjeny Thomas, in collaboration with doctors at Mater Children’s Hospital, have developed a test to help determine risk of developing type 1 diabetes, before symptoms develop. They have identified a cellular pathway, known as NF-kappa B, that is activated in the blood cells of people with type 1 diabetes. Monocytes, a type of blood cell, are a regulator of the immune system’s control when infection occurs. These cells are normally “quiet” until they are exposed to an infection, at which stage they activate the NF-kappaB pathway. However, in people with type 1 diabetes and children at risk, this pathway is already activated in blood monocytes. This provides a fundamental clue about the problems of immune control that cause type 1 diabetes to develop in children. The research group is undertaking a large study of families in which one member has type 1 diabetes, particularly families with young children, in order to determine how well the new blood test actually predicts the development of diabetes. If you and your family would like to participate in this study please email h.pahao”at”uq.edu.au

Professor Thomas’ research group is developing these insights into immune control in type 1 diabetes to design a vaccination strategy to retrain the immune system before symptoms of diabetes develop.

More information

For more detailed information about the research that is being done in the Dendritic Cell Biology Group, click on the link. For more information about type 1 diabetes, we recommend you visit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation website or Diabetes Australia website.