Diabetes Vaccine needs money for clinical research
Coxsackie viruses were blamed for type 1 diabetes
We are talking about Coxsackie viruses, which are, among other things, pathogens of meningitis. The authors, whose work is published in the journal Diabetes, claim that they have already developed a vaccine specifically protecting against infection with Coxsackie viruses and, accordingly, from type 1 diabetes and are ready to begin its clinical trials.
Professor Heikki Hyoty and his colleagues have been working for ten years on the hypothesis of the viral nature of type 1 diabetes mellitus (insulin-dependent), which usually occurs in childhood and is associated with the death of insulin-producing pancreatic cells (beta cells). It is assumed that the disease, in the development of which a certain role is played by a genetic predisposition, has an autoimmune nature, but what is the trigger that triggers an excessive immune response of the body is still not fully clear.
In recent years, different groups of scientists working independently of each other have found confirmation of the assumption that enterovirus infection can serve as a provoking factor leading to the beginning of the process of beta-cell damage, which may explain the increase in the prevalence of type 1 diabetes. In particular, this was done by British specialists in 2009.
However, which varieties of enteroviruses play a key role in this process, which makes it possible to develop a vaccine, the Hiyoti group was able to establish exactly only now, as a result of working with data from two large-scale studies. The first of them (Laitinen et al., Coxsackievirus B1 Is Associated With Induction of beta-Cell Autoimmunity That Portends Type 1 Diabetes) involved Finnish children with a genetic predisposition to Type 1 diabetes aged zero to 15 years, and the second (Oikarinen et al., Virus Antibody Survey in Different European Populations Indicates Risk Association Between Coxsackievirus B1 and Type 1 Diabetes) – children with newly diagnosed diabetes from five European countries. The authors examined their biological samples for the presence of antibodies to 41 types of enteroviruses and compared them with the indicators of the control group.
As a result, it was found that Coxsackie type B viruses, primarily strain B1, are strictly associated with the risk of onset of type 1 diabetes. To a lesser extent, strains B3 and B6 are involved in this process.
Coxsackievirus viruses are several types of RNA-containing enteroviruses that reproduce well in the gastrointestinal tract. This group of viruses is the causative agents of serous meningitis, enterovirus vesicular stomatitis ("hand, foot, mouth disease") and infectious myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle). It is known that Coxsackie type B viruses primarily infect the heart, pleura, liver, and pancreas.
Hiyoti told the Medical Daily resource (Diabetes Vaccine Breakthrough: Finnish Doctors Discover Virus That Causes Disease, Pinpoint 5 Strains For Vaccine Production), his group has already developed and successfully tested on mice a prototype vaccine specifically protecting against infection with Coxsackie virus strain B1, as well as from other related strains. Vaccination can prevent the development of type 1 diabetes in children with a high genetic predisposition to insulin-dependent diabetes.
The next step should be clinical trials of the vaccine. However, according to Hiyoti, they are hampered by a shortage of funds – according to scientists, clinical trials will require an investment of about 700 million euros, and Tampere University, even if sponsored by American and European funds, cannot allocate such an amount for these purposes.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.10.2013