The first disease-modifying treatment for type 1 diabetes may be on the horizon thanks to a novel approach being developed by a team led by Professor Sam El-Osta at Melbourne’s Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. Researchers have discovered a method that could eliminate the need for regular insulin injections in diabetes patients. The method uses two drugs, previously approved for rare cancers by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which have been found to rapidly restore insulin production in cells damaged by diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is a condition that represents about 10 percent of all diabetes cases in Australia, where the immune system destroys pancreatic cells, leading to the need for daily insulin injections to manage the disease. However, researchers have found that when treated with small molecule inhibitors in the drugs, the cells can respond to glucose and produce insulin within 48 hours. This therapy could also be beneficial to the 30 percent of Australians with type 2 diabetes who may eventually rely on insulin injections.
According to Mr. El-Osta, the team at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute considers this regenerative approach to be an important advance towards clinical development. The next phase involves testing the method in preclinical models before developing inhibitors as drugs for people with diabetes. The researchers are optimistic that regenerative therapy could help alleviate the shortage of donor organs and provide hope for people with insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes is a condition that affects nearly two million Australians, with almost 120,000 new cases arising in the past year. Globally, more than 530 million adults are living with diabetes, a number expected to rise to 643 million by 2030. For those with type 1 diabetes, the daily routine of insulin injections could potentially be reduced to once a day, or even eliminated altogether. This is an exciting step forward for the millions of people living with diabetes. The study was published in the scientific journal Nature.