stage clinical trial of the injected drug presented on Saturday published by Jeddah-based Saudi Guazette today. "The vaccine prolonged what little ability people with advanced diabetes had to make insulin. We are optimistic of better efficacy in younger people, who don't have full-blown disease," said Daniel Kaufman, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles' department of molecular and medical pharmacology, whose research team first developed and tested the vaccine in diabetes-prone mice. Diabetes, which can lead to heart disease, kidney failure and blindness, is caused by a shortage of insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels, or by the body's failure to respond to it. In Type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks cells in the insulin-making parts of the pancreas. The body is then unable to control blood sugar levels and insulin must be injected daily. Juvenile diabetes affects about one in 300 people, with the average onset age of 12. Type 2 diabetes, which is more common, arises when the body becomes resistant to insulin, often as a result of obesity. The UCLA researchers discovered the autoimmune response that causes Type 1 diabetes may be due to the immune system attacking a protein called GAD in the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. They then developed a diagnostic test for identifying individuals who were developing Type 1 diabetes based on antibodies to that protein in their blood. --More
