Diabetes vaccine to be tested on humans

A vaccine against the most serious type of diabetes will be tested on humans for the first time next year, UK scientists said today.

The clinical trial is due to start in August once scientists have gathered together 18 patients with type 1 diabetes, the life-threatening form of the disease which usually develops during childhood or adolescence.

The researchers, from Bristol University and King's College London, believe the vaccine could prevent the onset of the type 1 diabetes and cure people in the early stages of the disease.

If the trial is successful they anticipate a cure could be widely available within a decade.

Diabetes charities said this would be the most significant development in the treatment of the disease since the widespread prescription of insulin began in the 1920s.

There are 300,000 sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin needed to control blood sugar levels, in the UK. They need daily injections of synthetic insulin for the rest of their lives. Without treatment, glucose builds up in the bloodstream and death is inevitable.

The vaccine involves the injection of a protein, which stops the body destroying the insulin producing cells, known as islets.

The research, led by immunologists Professor Mark Peakman, Dr Colin Dayan and Dr Susan Wong, began four years ago with the identification of the proteins in islets that are attacked by white blood cells in diabetes.

This was followed by the successful inoculation of mice with a protein that stops the white blood cells from attacking the islets. Diabetic animals were protected for the rest of their lives.

The next stage is to conduct a human trial, following 18 patients with type 1 diabetes for 18 months. If successful, this would be followed by a larger scale trial.

Dr Wong, an immunologist at the University of Bristol, said: "In the first instance we will be looking to see an effect in people who already have diabetes. But ultimately the aim would be to prevent those at risk from ever developing the disease."

The research has been funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Diabetes UK. Georgina Slack, head of research at the charity Diabetes UK, said it appeared to improve the chances of providing a cure for the disease.

She said: "The prospect of finding a way of stopping the body from attacking itself and causing type 1 diabetes is the holy grail of diabetes research. We'll be following any progress with the research into humans very closely."