An additional hybrid insulin peptide as target of autoreactive T cells by Adam Burrack, PhD Readers of our “science of diabetes” blog will remember a news story about a year ago, in which researchers at the Barbara Davis Center in Denver, Colorado and in Australia collaborated to demonstrated the clinical relevance of so-called hybrid insulin […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – January 28, 2017
Inflammation promotes intra-pancreas neuron signaling which promote Th17 cells which promote beta cell destruction by Adam Burrack, PhD In a previous post about zonulin, I described how our diet influences gut permeability and may play a role in gut-directed autoimmunity. In that post I described the hypothesis that our diet influences the immune system’s response […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – January 21, 2017
Defects in development of regulatory T cells promote autoimmune disease by Adam Burrack, PhD Biology is a confusing beast sometimes. In particular the immune system. In particular the checks and balances between different branches of the immune system, each with different goals. Effector T cells protect the organism from exterior threats – potentially at the […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – January 14, 2017
Finding autoreactive T cells within type 1 diabetic pancreas samples by Adam Burrack, PhD We continue our series of descriptions of research output of the Human Islet Research Network. As a brief reminder, this consortium of NIH-funded researchers are working to develop methods to delay beta cell death, manipulate the immune system to prevent beta […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – January 7, 2017
Pancreatic islet transplant survival promoted by co-transfer of immune suppressive cells by Adam Burrack, PhD Pancreatic islet transplants represent a potential cure for type 1 diabetes, but are limited both by resources – vanishingly few donor organs are available – and biology – we cannot prevent chronic transplant rejection. I recently described some of the […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – December 17, 2016
The double-edged sword of cancer immunotherapy and autoimmunity by Adam Burrack, PhD “Immune checkpoint” therapy is the current cutting edge to treat cancer. Since cancer is the mirror image of autoimmunity – in cancer we want to promote a response in the presence of strong local suppression, in autoimmunity we want to stop a response […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – December 10, 2016
A brief history of immune recognition and tolerance of pancreatic islet transplants by Adam Burrack, PhD We’ve not spent much space in this blogs series describing how pancreatic islet transplants are destroyed. In one of our first blog posts, I described Doug Melton’s work producing patient-specific beta cells, but haven’t gotten into the details of […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – November 26, 2016
Benefits and limitations of HbA1c as a measurement of T1D management by Adam Burrack, PhD Ever wonder how well hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) reflects your diabetes management? I know I have. First, a little background on what this number represents and how it came to become the “gold standard” of diabetes management. Long story short, […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – November 19, 2016
Activity level improves T1D management by Adam Burrack, PhD A key pillar of YOUglycemia’s mission statement is that consistent aerobic exercise helps to manage type 1 diabetes. These benefits include enhanced sensitivity to injected insulin, improved carbohydrate metabolism, and the well-documented benefits of aerobic exercise for learning and memory formation summarized in this Runner’s World […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – November 12, 2016
Introducing the “exercise hormone” – irisin by Adam Burrack, PhD I have previously described the role of the signaling molecule IL-6 as the “exercise factor” in several posts to our blog. Briefly, IL-6 is normally thought of as a “pro-inflammatory” signal released during infections. But, during aerobic exercise our muscles produce this molecule. In this […]