Washington, Sept. 16 (ANI): Researchers at UCLA, California's largest university, have developed a new vaccine which, if found successful in human trials, could help in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
Human clinical trials are being held to check the viability of the drug called Diamyd, which is based on researches on GAD (glutamic acid decarboxylase), but a drug for for treatment of type 1 diabetes is unlikely to be available for at least a few years.
Based on the success of the GAD vaccine to prevent diabetes in mice, Diamyd Medical conducted a phase II clinical trial by treating adults who recently had been diagnosed with diabetes, and found that the treatment with it could preserve some insulin production for at least two years after the onset of the disease in adults.
Johnny Ludvigsson, pediatrics professor at Sweden's University Hospital, Linköping University, will present results from the phase II study conducted in eight hospitals in Sweden in collaboration with Diamyd Medical (www.diamyd.com), a life science company located in Stockholm, Sweden, at a meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes to be held in Copenhagen on Sept. 17.
Allan J. Tobin, a UCLA professor emeritus of physiological science and neurology, says that during the research in the late 1980s and 1990s, he and his colleagues did not find any side effects in this drug.
"It's the only thing so far that really slows this disease down without adverse side effects," he says.
"The amazing thing about this emerging story, however, is that it started from basic research on the brain." Tobin adds.
Type 1 diabetes usually begins in childhood or adolescence and is characterized by a failure of the body to produce insulin because the immune system attacks and destroys the body's insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.
The first researchers to isolate the genes encoding GAD were a graduate student Daniel Kaufman, who is now a UCLA professor in the department of molecular and medical pharmacology, and graduate student Mark Erlander, now executive vice president and chief scientific officer of AviaraDx, a biotechnology company in Carlsbad, Calif.
They tell that GAD synthesizes one of the main neurotransmitters, which communicate with other pancreas cells to help control glucose levels in the blood.
Kaufman says that GAD could detect autoantibodies against GAD years before the symptoms of diabetes appeared.
"These tools allowed us to detect the early appearance of an autoimmune reaction more than five years before the onset of diabetes," Tobin says.
Many laboratories throughout the world are now using recombinant GAD to determine whether individuals have autoantibodies to GAD and are likely to develop diabetes.
The UCLA has licensed the technology to Diamyd Medical for clinical development, and Tobin and Kaufman serve on the scientific advisory board of Diamyd.
Tobin and Kaufman are optimistic about the drug, which is called Diamyd, but both said it is likely to be at least a few years before a drug for type 1 diabetes is available.
"If the result holds up in a phase III trial, it's going to make a big difference," Tobin said. "It feels terrific." (ANI)