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Immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes

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Abstract

Introduction

Although many approaches have been tested to overcome the insulin dependence caused by the pancreatic β-cells destruction observed in individuals affected by type 1 diabetes (T1D), medical research has largely failed to halt the onset or to reverse T1D.

Methods

In this work, the state of the art of immunotherapy will be examined, and the most important achievement in the field will be critically discussed. Particularly, we will focus on the clinical aspect, thus avoiding the tedious preclinical work done in NOD mice, which has been so poorly translated to the bedside.

Conclusions

Stem cell therapies achieved thus this far the most promising results, while immune ablation and standard immunosuppressants did not maintain the premises of preclinical results. The next step will be to generate a feasible and safe clinical approach in order to cure the thousands of patients affected by T1D.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DITID, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy

    Davide Frumento & Francesca D’Addio

  2. International Center for T1D, Pediatric Clinical Research Center Fondazione Romeo e Enrica Invernizzi, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Science L. Sacco, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Moufida Ben Nasr, Francesca D’Addio & Paolo Fiorina

  3. Nephrology Division, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Enders Building 5th floor Room EN511, 300 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA, USA

    Moufida Ben Nasr & Paolo Fiorina

  4. Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

    Basset El Essawy

  5. Pediatric Clinical Research Center Fondazione Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Science L. Sacco, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Gian Vincenzo Zuccotti

Authors
  1. Davide Frumento
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  2. Moufida Ben Nasr
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  3. Basset El Essawy
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  4. Francesca D’Addio
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  5. Gian Vincenzo Zuccotti
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  6. Paolo Fiorina
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Correspondence to Paolo Fiorina.

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Frumento, D., Ben Nasr, M., El Essawy, B. et al. Immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes. J Endocrinol Invest 40, 803–814 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-017-0641-y

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