Diabetes: international funding to study pancreatic beta cells

Professor Decio L. Eizirik, from ULB’s Diabetes Research Center, is coordinating an international project funded to the tune of 2 million euros by the American foundations Breakthrough Type 1 Diabetes and Helmsley Charitable Trust. Objective: to measure, for the first time in humans, the mass of pancreatic beta cells involved in type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease characterized by the progressive destruction of the pancreatic beta cells responsible for insulin production. However, there is currently no method for directly assessing, in living patients, the quantity of beta cells still present in the body. This is a major gap in our understanding of the progression of the disease, and in our ability to adapt treatments.

To meet this challenge, Decio L. Eizirik - ULB Diabetes Research Center, Faculty of Medicine - is coordinating an ambitious three-year research project, in collaboration with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Uppsala University in Sweden. The project has received 2,000,000 euros in funding from the American foundations Breakthrough Type 1 Diabetes and the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

At the heart of this research is an innovative tool discovered by Professor Eizirik and patented by ULB. These are small camel-derived antibodies capable of specifically targeting the DPP6 surface protein found on pancreatic beta cells. Using this technology, the researchers hope to quantify with precision the total mass of beta cells - i.e. the number of insulin-producing cells - in people with normal blood sugar levels, but also in patients with type 1 diabetes.

If this approach proves conclusive, it will make it possible, for the first time, to directly assess the quantity of remaining beta cells in human beings. This is a decisive step towards a better understanding of the progression of type 1 diabetes, and paves the way for new therapeutic strategies aimed at preserving or restoring these essential cells.