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July 14, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Vaccine May Slow Progress of Diabetes”

Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) (07/14/03) P. F3; Roan, Shari

A research team from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) believed in the early 1990s that type 1 diabetes hinges on the activity of a particular brain protein that is released in the pancreas.  The protein is called GAD, and it plays a role in the secretion of insulin, which controls blood sugar levels.  In their investigations, they came to the conclusion that a vaccination with GAD helped to teach the immune system not to see the protein as a foreign body, ending the system’s attacks on GAD and allowing it to operate naturally within the body, regulating insulin.  Diamyd Medical, the Swedish company that licensed the drug from UCLA, showed at last month’s convention of the American Diabetes Association that the vaccine helped to prolong the insulin-moderating activities of the pancreas in adults with recently diagnosed late-onset type 1 diabetes.  The researchers are now focused on studies that consider if the vaccine will help children to regulate insulin in the body for a prolonged period, putting off the eventual step of injecting insulin for sugar regulation.