Yesterday was a big day at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International's (JDRF) Children's Congress 2007. Mary Tyler Moore, veteran JDRF International Chairman, stepped up to the plate and testified at the U.S. Senate hearing "The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Federal Government: A Model Public-Private Partnership Accelerating Research Toward a Cure." I think she smacked a home run, and if JDRF lands the research dollars they are requesting, scratch that, she hit a grand slam.

Currently, the federal government is chipping in $150 million in research funding to the Special Diabetes Program, which was originally established in 1997, representing 35 percent of federal funding for diabetes research. Moore explained how the Special Diabetes Program deploys federal dollars quite differently than traditional National Institutes of Health funds as it supports unique, collaborative consortia and clinical trials networks focusing on type 1 diabetes. JDRF is now asking Congress to increase the Special Diabetes Program funding to $200 million a year for another five years.

These federal dollars are not stand-alone funds, hence the "Model Public-Private Partnership." JDRF is kicking in $170 million (big $$) next year, the most they've ever spent. Three times more than they funded in 1999, the year the very first JDRF Children's Congress traveled to D.C. JDRF is in the midst of a growing flurry of clinical research, initiating eight new clinical trials this year, for a total of 29 active clinical trials (compared to five clinical trials running in 2000). Now that is real progress.

Moore explained how the type 1 diabetes knowledge base has now reached the point of clinical research. Trials are testing new therapies in people, allowing hopes to become reality. Here are three concrete examples of promising research avenues thus far:

1. A new drug in human clinical trials has stabilized or reversed the immune attack of type 1 diabetes, first-time evidence the course of the disease can be altered. Trials are studying newly diagnosed children.

2. Promising results utilizing cancer drugs to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetic eye disease, the leading cause of blindness in working age adults.

3. An 'artificial pancreas' is on the horizon, closely mimicking insulin delivery of a normal pancreas for tighter blood glucose control.

We need Big Government to fund type 1 diabetes research. Mary Tyler Moore went to the mic to ask for just that -- with her beautiful smile and nearly 40 years of experience living with type 1 diabetes. Check out the Senate Committee for Homeland Security and Government Affairs website for a PDF of her testimony.