Benaroya Institute, Diabetes Management Technology, Carla Greenbaum By Josh Boyer, MSc One issue that scientists have long struggled with is communication between disciplines. I am an immunologist at UCSD studying lymphocyte trafficking and my main passion is the autoimmune pathogenesis behind type 1 diabetes. While I have long studied diabetes, I don’t often read articles […]
Category Archives: Immunology
Saturday Morning Research Review – April 1, 2017
T follicular helper cells facilitate autoantibody production and subsequent beta cell destruction by Adam Burrack, PhD In today’s post, I’m going to add to our series describing the process of beta cell destruction leading to type 1 diabetes (T1D) by describing the germinal center reaction. This process, which occurs primarily in lymph nodes but can occur […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – February 4, 2017
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 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 – 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 5, 2016
Newly discovered connection between IL-6 and T1D onset by Adam Burrack, PhD Interleukins – the general term is cytokines – are like the hormones of the immune system: they can be produced by either cells of the immune system or infected tissue cells, and can influence the activation of immune cells and their movement throughout […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – October 29, 2016
Beta cell biology of GABA in inflammation and exercise by Adam Burrack, PhD Several blogs in our series have focused on the role of insulin-derived peptides as targets of autoreactive T cells in the destruction of beta cells leading to development of type 1 diabetes. In particular my descriptions of the research of George Eisenbarth […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – October 22, 2016
Recent studies of glucose control and autoimmunity in pets by Adam Burrack, PhD Last fall I profiled diabetic guide dogs, which have been gaining favor among people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) who live alone and/or are concerned about severe hypoglycemic episodes. Today I will describe several more recent reports detailing the development of diabetes […]
Saturday Morning Research Review – October 15, 2016
Potential “phenotypic signature” of T cells in pediatric-onset type 1 diabetes by Adam Burrack, PhD Predictive markers of T cell responses against beta cells are a highly sought clinical diagnostic. Analysis of a validated, limited, set of cell surface proteins on T cells collected from peripheral blood would facilitate “risk assessment” in people at-risk of […]