{"id":546998,"date":"2010-04-28T16:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologytransfertactics.com\/content\/?p=6419"},"modified":"2010-04-28T16:17:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:17:00","slug":"u-calgary-nano-based-vaccine-%e2%80%98cures%e2%80%99-mice-with-type-1-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/546998","title":{"rendered":"U-Calgary nano-based vaccine \u2018cures\u2019 mice with type 1 diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using a nanotechnology-based vaccine, researchers at the University of Calgary in Alberta were able to “cure” mice with type 1 diabetes and slow the onset of the disease in mice at risk for the disease. Their study, co-funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), provides new insights into understanding how to stop the immune system attack that causes type 1 diabetes and could have implications for other autoimmune diseases.\u00a0The study was published in Immunity<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pere Santamaria, MD, PhD, professor in U-Calgary’s department of microbiology and infectious diseases and director of the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Researchers Center, and colleagues sought to stop the autoimmune response that causes type 1 diabetes without damaging the immune cells that provide protection against infections — a process called antigen-specific immunotherapy. Type 1 diabetes is caused when certain white blood cells — called T-cells — mistakenly attack and destroy the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. “Essentially there is an internal tug-of-war between aggressive T-cells that want to cause the disease and weaker T-cells that want to stop it from occurring,” explains Santamaria, who is a JDRF Scholar.<\/p>\n

The researchers developed a vaccine comprised of nanoparticles coated with protein fragments — peptides — specific to type 1 diabetes, which are bound to molecules that play a key role in presenting peptides to T-cells. The nanoparticle vaccine worked by expanding the number of peptide-specific regulatory T-cells, suppressing the immune attack that destroys beta cells. The expanded peptide-specific regulatory cells shut down the autoimmune attack by preventing aggressive autoimmune cells from being stimulated by either the peptide contained in the vaccine or by any other type 1 diabetes auto-antigen presented simultaneously on the same antigen presenting cell.<\/p>\n

The research also provided insight into the ability to translate the findings in mice into therapeutics for people with diabetes: nanoparticles that contained human diabetes-related molecules were able to restore normal blood sugar levels in a humanized mouse model of diabetes. According to Teodora Staeva, PhD, JDRF program director of immune therapies, a key finding from the study is that only the immune cells specifically focused on aggressively destroying beta cells — or, alternatively, regulating these cells — responded to the antigen-specific nanoparticle vaccine. The treatment did not compromise the rest of the immune system. “Dr. Santamaria’s research has provided both insight into pathways for developing new immunotherapies and proof-of-concept of a specific therapy that exploits these pathways for preventing and reversing type 1 diabetes,” Staeva says.<\/p>\n

If the paradigm on which the nanovaccine is based holds true in other chronic autoimmune diseases, nanovaccines might find general applicability in autoimmunity, Santamaria says. The nanoparticle vaccine technology has been licensed by Parvus Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company spun out from University Technology International LP, the tech transfer and commercialization center for the University of Calgary.<\/p>\n

Source: Nano Patents and Innovations
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Using a nanotechnology-based vaccine, researchers at the University of Calgary in Alberta were able to “cure” mice with type 1 diabetes and slow the onset of the disease in mice at risk for the disease. Their study, co-funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), provides new insights into understanding how to stop the immune […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}