Project summary
Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-making beta cells. Dr Mark Russell and his PhD student will test existing drugs that could help to hide and protect beta cells from attack. This could lead to a new way to slow down type 1 diabetes, giving people more time with their own insulin and protecting their future health. In the longer term, the drugs could also help to cure type 1 diabetes.
Background to research
Our cells have built-in CCTV cameras, a group of proteins named HLA-I, that help the immune system monitor threats. In type 1 diabetes, this system misfires and insulin-making beta cells produce too much HLA-I. This them easy targets for an immune system attack.
Dr Mark Russell and his team have identified a group of existing drugs, called HDAC inhibitors, that could help reduce HLA-1 production. They want to see if these drugs can help beta cells stay hidden from the immune system in type 1 diabetes.
Research aims
Dr Russell and his PhD student will test the drugs in the lab with human beta cells. They’ll explore if drug-induced changes in HLA-I levels on beta cells affect relevant immune activities.
Because HDAC inhibitors target multiple proteins, the team also plans to break this down and identify the exact proteins responsible for immune attacks on beta cells. This could help them develop more precise, safer treatments for type 1 diabetes.
They’ll also combine HDAC inhibitors with another type of drug that could also ‘hide’ beta-cells from immune attack, but works to do this in a different way. They want to find out if using these two drugs together can boost their effectiveness in treating type 1 diabetes.
Potential benefit to people with diabetes
This research will be vital to unlocking the full potential of HDAC inhibitors to treat type 1 diabetes. By hiding beta cells from the immune system, HDAC inhibitors could be used at three different stages:
- To delay the onset of type 1 in people who haven't fully developed the condition yet.
- To preserve surviving beta cells in people recently diagnosed and slow the progression of type 1.
- To play a role in curing type 1 for people who've been living with it for longer, by boosting the success of beta cell replacement therapies.
HDAC inhibitors are already approved for some cancer treatments. This means repurposing these drugs to treat type 1 diabetes could happen much faster than developing new ones from scratch.
