Diabetes
Research

Diabetes is a devastating disease that occurs when the islets of the pancreas do not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. As a consequence, diabetic patients lose the ability to regulate their own blood glucose and suffer from chronic hyperglycemia (high glucose levels in the blood) which in turn can lead to multi-organ damage. Diabetes is by nature a very heterogenous disease, where multiple factors, inherited and acquired, contribute to the onset of the disease, which makes generalizable disease mechanisms very difficult to identify or even unlikely to exist.

 

In Type-1-Diabetes (T1D) the insulin-producing β-islet cells of the pancreas are destroyed by the patient’s own immune cells. Insulin therapy is associated with substantial burden with people living with diabetes. Although T cells have been identified as the alleged perpetrators, the root cause of T1D is still unknown. Are there intrinsic factors that lead to β-cell destruction in which the β-cells themselves are responsible for their own demise or are there extrinsic factors which trigger T1D disease progression?

Type-2-Diabetes (T2D) on the other hand is caused by an acquired resistance of various tissues (liver, skeletal muscles or adipocytes) to insulin thereby leading to hyperglycemia, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. T2D is one manifestation of the broader metabolic syndrome (MS) and is often accompanied by pre-obesity resulting in a compensatory increase in beta-cell insulin production and hyperinsulinemia in the short term. Yet, over time T2D similarly to T1D can manifest in a progressive loss of insulin secretion and β-cell exhaustion.

 

We at CBmed want to identify and repurpose drugs that alleviate cellular stress and ultimately lead to β-cell protection. For that, we deploy state-of-the-art in vitro and in vivo models to elucidate the interplay between β-cell stress and immune cell attraction in the pursuit of a potential cure for diabetes. Our approach will circumvent long drug discovery timelines and will have an imminent effect of patient care as the identified drugs are already approved and safe for use in humans.