Type 1 diabetes immunology
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Defining islet antigens to understand the immunology and for immunotherapy of type 1 diabetes
IRAS ID
244339
Contact name
Parth Narendran
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Type 1 diabetes is caused by the body’s immune system attacking insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas. A sub-group of immune cells called T-cells cause this damage. The aim of this research is to find out exactly which components of the beta-cell are recognised and attacked by T-cells. These components of the beta-cell that are recognised by T-cells are sometimes called T-cell epitopes.
An understanding of T-cell epitopes will help patients in two ways:
1) we can use this knowledge to measure the number of T-cells in the patients’ blood that are attacking the beta-cell. This will characterise the immune response very accurately, and help tell patients whether they have type 1 or type 2 diabetes. This would be very useful because it can sometimes be very difficult to differentiate between these forms of diabetes.
2) we can ‘desensitize’ the T-cell to these T-cell epitopes so that they do not then attack the beta-cell. In animal studies, this sort of desensitisation has prevented the development of diabetes. Because this form of therapy harnesses the power of the immune system, it is often called ‘immunotherapy’.REC name
London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0970
Date of REC Opinion
29 Jun 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion