Project summary
Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-making beta cells. Dr Mark Russell and his team will test existing drugs that could help 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 a better quality of life.
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—insulin-making beta cells produce too much HLA-I, making them easy targets for an immune attack.
Dr Mark Russell and his team have identified a class of 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
If successful, HDAC inhibitors could have the potential to treat people living with type 1 diabetes whose beta cells have not yet been fully destroyed. Hiding beta cells from the immune system could also potentially delay the onset of type 1 diabetes in people in the early stages of type 1 diabetes, before the conditions fully develops.
Helping people hold on to more of their own beta cells for longer could give them stabler blood sugar levels, reducing their risks of hypos and developing serious long-term complications, helping people live healthier, easier and longer lives.
HDAC inhibitors are approved for some cancer treatments. So, repurposing these drugs could help people with or at risk of type 1 diabetes faster than developing new drugs from scratch.
