Profiling The Kinome In Type 1 Diabetes

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Profiling The Kinome In Type 1 Diabetes; Identifying Novel Targets For Biomarker Development and Disease-modifying Therapies

  • IRAS ID

    369106

  • Contact name

    Claire Williams

  • Contact email

    claire.l.williams@bristol.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Bristol

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 9 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    The kinome is a term used to refer to a family of proteins, called kinases, in our body. These kinases help our cells talk to one another and can affect how cells function. We can also look at how kinases effect cell growth, movement, and response to other cells. The kinome is essential for understanding health and disease.
    The dysfunction of the kinome plays a key role in many diseases. Sometimes the kinome is overactive or underactive. This causes cells not to function or communicate properly. There has been a lot of success in treating diseases with drugs that target protein kinases. Most are used to treat different forms of cancer and show limited side effects. Only a few have been investigated in type 1 diabetes, but show very promising results. This shows that kinome dysfunction may be involved in the development of type 1 diabetes.
    Type 1 diabetes is caused by immune cells mistakenly destroying the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Altered communication between immune cells and the kinome could speed up the development of type 1 diabetes.
    For the first time, we seek to investigate the kinome family tree, in detail, in type 1 diabetes. This may reveal protein kinases or branches of the kinome that are critical and specific to type 1 diabetes. In the past this was not possible, because the technology was not available. We aim to compare the kinome in blood samples from people at risk of future type 1 diabetes, people living with type 1 diabetes, and people without diabetes.

  • REC name

    West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    26/WM/0048

  • Date of REC Opinion

    18 Mar 2026

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion