JDRF Funds Leading-Edge Research in France
New York City, NY, June 19, 2002 JDRF has begun a new partnership
with two funding organizations in France to support three outstanding
research projects in that country, another example of JDRF increasing
its global presence to fund the best type 1 diabetes research in the
world.
Through the newly formed collaboration, JDRF is committing about $2.7
million to three diabetes-related research projects by leading
scientists in Paris, supplementing funds being supplied by Inserm,
the French Institute of Health and Medical Research, and FRM, a
French private foundation supporting medical research.
“These were three very strong grants, for which JDRF gets a great
deal on its investment,” says Robert Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., Chief
Scientific Officer at JDRF. “It’s a chance to fund exceptional
science without JDRF bearing the entire financial commitment.”
The three projects approach type 1 diabetes through different
research disciplines, including genetics, immunology, and pancreatic
development:
Identifying genes for susceptibility to type 1 diabetes
Principal Investigator: Cecile Julier, Ph.D.
Institut Pasteur, Paris
Dr. Julier and colleagues will try to identify genes that make a
person more likely to develop type 1 diabetes. In particular, the
researchers will focus on three genetic regions. Two correspond to
locations on the chromosome for which researchers have strong
evidence suggesting existence of a susceptibility gene. The other
region they will examine contains a gene which, when mutated, causes
a rare form of diabetes known as Wolcott-Rallison syndrome, which
makes patients permanently insulin-dependent shortly after birth.
Genetic data from this study will be incorporated into the large
database operated by the Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, an
ambitious undertakingfunded partly by JDRFto combine and share
genetic information from diabetes studies around the world.
Blocking the immune attack that causes type 1 diabetes
Principal Investigator: Lucienne Chatenoud, M.D., D.Sc.
Hopital Necker, Paris
Type 1 diabetes occurs when a subset of the immune system’s T cells
destroys the insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas. In people
without the disease, another subset of T cells, usually
called “immunoregulatory T cells,” regulates the destructive T cells
to prevent them from mistakenly attacking the body’s own tissue. Dr.
Chatenoud’s team will study these immunoregulatory cells to learn
more about how they exert their protective effect. Boosting the
effect of these cells might be a better way of preventing type 1
diabetes than trying to suppress the destructive T cells, which
usually requires long-term immunosuppressive drug treatment and
brings with it an increased risk of infection.
Learning how to increase beta cell mass
Principal Investigator: Raphael Scharfmann, Ph.D.
Hopital R. Debre, Paris
Dr. Scharfmann and colleagues will try to develop ways to increase
the amount of beta cells available for transplantation into patients
with type 1 diabetes. The researchers will try to identify growth
factors that the body secretes to direct undifferentiated cells to
develop into pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. They also
will try to clarify the molecular pathways by which such growth
factors transform undifferentiated cells into beta cells. If these
factors can be found and understood, researchers might be able to
reproduce their effect on undifferentiated cells in the lab,
increasing the number of beta cells available for transplant.
This project complements research Dr. Scharfmann is conducting under
another recent grant JDRF made in early 2002 to establish the JDRF
Center for Beta Cell Therapy in Europe. The Center, under the
direction of Daniel Pipeleers, M.D., Ph.D., involves a consortium of
clinical and research organizations from seven European countries.
Under this grant, Dr. Scharfmann and colleagues are investigating the
possibility of driving fetal tissue precursor cells to develop into
beta cells.
A Leadership Role
In FY 2001 JDRF committed 38 percent of its research funds outside
the U.S., demonstrating its leadership role in both funding and
coordinating international research in such critical areas as islet
transplantation, stem cell research, and the genetics of diabetes.
Currently JDRF funds more than 150 separate grants in 17 countries
around the world. Eight of the 29 JDRF Research Centers founded since
1998 lie outside the U.S. JDRF also works with a growing list of
international partners.