I do not like vaccinations. I wonder if they are connected to the autism and diabetes epidemics, even attention-deficit disorders. I do vaccinate my children, just begrudgingly. Yet if there ever was a vaccination against type 1 diabetes, I would be first in line.
Researchers in France and Germany have demonstrated you can treat a type 1 diabetic mouse with a vaccination. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system's T cells cannot distinguish between "non-self" and "self", attacking cells of the pancreas that produce insulin.
Previously, Drs. Falk and Rotzschke of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), blocked the misdirected immune system by vaccinating mice with modified structures of the same organ targeted by the defective T cell immune response. Antigens are structures which activate a body's immune system, and the mice were protected from type 1 diabetes through the body's own antigens linked together in a repetive chain of identical copies. But the researchers did not understand how this protective string of antigens worked.
In a new study, Drs. Liblau, Falk and Rotzschke have proven this protective effect is due to the activation of an immune system's suppressor cells, the very cells that block those misguided T cells. Suppressor cells only inhibit T cells that attack a body's own tissue, allowing T cells to continue to attack foreign viruses and bacteria.
Dr. Rotzschke believes suppressor cells are a promising research focus in immunology. Even better, he is confident suppressing a haywired immune system through a specific vaccination with one's own antigens opens up a whole new treatment approach.
1. The field of immunology remains largely in its infancy today, so I expect that much more work will emerge in coming years. We need to remember that last year, diabetes researchers discovered that the internal structure of human insulin-producing islet cells is dramatically different than the well studied islets in rodents – an important finding that will impact the way research is conducted if it is to benefit people living with diabetes. While many treatments have cured mice, none has yet to translate into success in treating humans with T1DM. However, this is yet another important discovery towards solving the puzzle known as type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Posted at 3:37PM on May 30th 2007 by Scott