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Finnish Team Makes Diabetes Vaccine Breakthrough
jones_supa writes "A team working at Tampere University, Finland has discovered the virus that causes type 1 diabetes. The enterovirus penetrates the pancreas and destroys insulin-producing cells, eventually causing diabetes. Researchers have looked at more than a hundred different strains of the virus and pinpointed five that could cause diabetes. They believe they could produce a vaccine against those strains. One virus type has been identified to carry the biggest risk. A vaccine could also protect against its close relatives, to give the best possible effect. A similar enterovirus causes polio, which has been almost eradicated in many parts of the world thanks to vaccination programmes. A prototype diabetes vaccine has already been produced and tested on animals. Taking the vaccine through a clinical trial would cost some 700 million euros. Some funding is in place from the United States and from Europe, but more is required. Professor Heikki Hyöty says that money is the biggest obstacle in moving to testing in humans, but he sees that people are interested in their research and that the funding problems will ultimately be solved."
I nodded this in the firehose because it looked interesting.
There's not much information in the linked article. Can anyone give us more info? Anyone who reads Finnish care to comment on the source - is it reliable, are the researchers legitimate?
progress toward making a vaccine is good and all but when will they finnish it. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A great advancement, but there are undoubtedly many causes of type 1 diabetes, many of which have been described in the scientific literature. Just a little bit of an overstatement to say, "the virus that causes type 1 diabetes," has been discovered.
It is worth noting this is for type 1 diabetes, not type 2 which is the modern plague resulting largely from bad diet and inactivity. That said, if you know somebody for whom diabetes is a lifelong affliction since childhood, and kids who need shots for diabetes, that's type 1. A cure would be a huge deal.
Two things: 1. This is for type 1 diabetes. Most of the good money is for type 2. 2. Lots of billion dollar medical industries go belly up. COX-2 inhibitors. Clot busters replaced by angioplasty in a lot of cases.
..yeah because nobody wanted to make money from the preventive cure for type 1? grow up.
and from what I gathered from the article you would need to be treated with the vaccine prior to your pancreas getting fscked by the virus.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Sweet!
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
What was the last billion dollar industry that let itself go obsolete?
Slave trading.
It didn't go obselete, it just implemented a different business model.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Anyone who blames the cost of health care on outlandishly priced medicine should have their eyelids removed and that article stapled to their face so they can read it several times a day. For perspective, I did the work for everyone.
AZN - $6.3B on revenues of $30B, 21% profit
GSK - $8.3 B on $42.5, 20% profit
SNY - 6.5B on $47B
RHHBY - $10.6B on $51.8B
PFE - $14.6B on $59B for 25% those bastards
JNJ - 10.9B on 67B
LLY - 4B on 22.6B
ABT - $6B on $40B
MRK - 6.1B on 47.2B
BMY - 2B on 18B - 11%, what is this, charity?
NVS - 9.6B on 58B
AMGN - 4B on 17B
Source: Yahoo finance numbers, the first result that didn't require scripts or images, for 2012 year ending December.
If you want to argue whether $500B in drugs is needed for a year for 7.1 billion people, most of whom either aren't sick or can't see a doctor, that's a different argument.
Every one of you mouthbreathing neckbeards who made a comment about gold plating, bribes, or other ridiculous nonsense need to either learn something about the world, or figure out why you are so resentful of a 20% profit margin.
Ever watch shark tank? They would shit on themselves rather than move over less than 200% profit margin, and then they look for bringing down cost after that. 20% is low for general consumer goods, and of course we aren't talking about consumer goods here but a comparison hopefully helps. The R&D costs are not so far off from the profits - meaning they could double their profits immediately in return for not having anything new to market in 5 years, and considering patents they would be busto in another 10 years. Barely skating by in business terms.
There is a significant body of literature attempting to associate the onset of type 1 diabetes with infection by members of the species B enteroviruses, specifically CVB's (Coxsackieviruses B1 to B6) , if you search pubmed you will find hundreds of manuscripts. The problem has been nailing down a definitive causal relationship, from my understanding it is thought that there may be an element of molecular mimicry involved in the disease (or something similar). Essentially the virus infects the host and damages specific parts of the pancreas, the host's immune system mounts a response to the insult, but in the process creates antibodies that target the hosts own islet cells, resulting in the autoimmune disease that is type 1 diabetes. The problem of definitively implicating CVB's for type 1 diabetes is similar in some ways to that of other enterovirus infections like Polio. Basically there are other host mediated issues at play but with Polio you are able to detect the virus around the time of infection, with diabetes the disease presents after the infection has been cleared, complicating matters. To this day we still don't understand why only about 1% of people infected with Polio will develop paralysis, whilst the majority of people ~95% will show no significant signs of illness. Host factors are really important and not fully understood, there may even be a role for certain bacteria in the gut assisting the infection!
As a side note there has been some recent rumblings about the possibility of viral infections triggering transient type 2 diabetes, I can't link to any papers at the moment (too busy at work) but if anyone is interested I can have a dig around later.
Hopefully the vaccine is able to account for the amount of drift in the enterovirus genome that occurs at up to ~1% per annum, a similar problem exists with the new enterovirus 71 vaccine, an emerging bug similar in presentation to Polio.
P2RX7 was all the hype back in January. Here's a blog entry on it... Or the paper abstract for the more technically inclined (pay-wall for paper)...
If people are interested, I think there is some more info in English concerning the earlier Tampere research here (for free)...
Sometimes it's hard to predict what is going to work in bio-science just by seeing the techno-press response. Although polio is caused by an Enterovirus, so is the common cold (the variety caused by a Rhinovirus). Generally you get Enterovirus infections orally. Some Enteroviruses can eventually enter the bloodstream and infect other organs.
Apparently, the Tampere study looked at the small-bowel mucosal biopsies of 120 patients and did a PCR technique to assess if there was likely a Enterovirus infection. 74% of people with type 1 diabetes tested positive, compared with 29% of the non-diabetic ones. On that basis they conclude that a persistent Enterovirus infection in the small-bowel might eventually spread to the pancreas where the on-going immune response might destroy the insulin producing cells leading to diabetes...
So, I wasn't totally impressed after reading that paper, but you never know...
Given that some viruses infect bacteria and alter their genetic profiles, sure, some of that is possible.
Write failed: Broken pipe
20% for consumer goods?
I think Walmart sells those ... OK, according to Yahoo finance:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMT
Walmart have a profit margin of 3.61%
Not 20%.
Type 1 diabetes comes with a lifetime requirement of insulin, syringes (or needles, for those nifty pens by novo nordisk), blood-sugar testers and their required test strips, and a small army of professional endocrinologists whose sole purpose is to tell people how to control their blood-sugar levels with as little insulin as possible to reduce risk of complications.
Type 2 diabetes comes with the occasional need for medications, a few doctor visits, and lifestyle changes.
I think you're confused.
The research suggests that the genetic predisposition causes the immune system to act different in response to the virus. If the research is correct, then yes you need both the genetic factor and the virus to get type-1 diabetes. Of course, that completely discounts any other possible methods of 'catching' the disease. Since it is an autoimmune disorder, there are likely multiple factors involved. If this pans out and cures the most common of those factors, it may still not eliminate the disease.
In one line you managed to span the spectrum from ill-informed to irrelevant. Good job.
1) Cures are not "supposed" to reduce (monetary) costs, and in many cases they don't. [ill-informed]
2) The number of people with Type I Diabetes is in excess of 10 million. A billion dollar clinical trial, amortized over this population, pales in comparison to the costs (monetary or human suffering) of management. [ill-informed]
3) None of this has anything to do with socialized medicine. [irrelevant]
Best media reporting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7926026.stm
Most notable analysis (scroll to bottom, in square brackets)
http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20090308.0959
The ProMed moderator links to related background research, points out that there are 5 specie of Enterovirus distinct enough that one vaccine could not fit all, it is 'premature' to announce it this way until the particular agent and mechanism is identified.
So by all means forge ahead, but be prudently wary of anyone who implies this is in the final stage where a vaccine is just around the corner.
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If we were to fund LFTR research with the same dedication and fervor that we funded the polio vaccine, America could be energy-independent within 30 years, forever. Off-topic, pretend it's my sig.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Type 1 versus Type 2 is the difference between a missing leg, and serious arthritis. There are 20 times as many Type 2 diabetics, but most cases of Type 2 can be treated by lifestyle changes and maybe oral medication. Type 1 is...., well, for me, it's limited career choices and lifestyle. I've probably been knocked out hypoglycemic episodes 300 times or so in my life: that has to have caused some intellectual damage. I've got notable kidney, eye, and skin damage, though I'm doing pretty good for a 45 year Type 1. Don't get me *started* on what it does to your sex life to need your blood sugar low enough to be amorous, and high enough to prevent hypoglycemia and impotence during good sex. Those regions don't overlap anymore!!!
Sorry, I had to rant. Anyway, the result is that the consequences are so profound that the smaller numbers of Type 1 diabetics get a much, much larger than 5% share of the research. It's so much more profound, so much more dangerous, and so much more *expensive* to treat that it justifies the investment. The treatment costs really add up, with one dollar each test strips, $3/day insulin costs, infusion sets for insulin pumps, doctor visits for eyes and kidneys and feet and skin, etc., etc. that it makes sense to invest more heavily in it.
Type 2 diabetes comes with the occasional need for medications, a few doctor visits, and lifestyle changes.
I think you're confused.
Type 2 diabetes can progress to the stage where it is just as difficult to manage as Type 1. Your body can become resistant to medications such as glucophage and then you end up on insulin anyway. Glucophage doesn't even work for all Type 2 patients, some have to use insulin regardless. In fact, they have developed synthetic insulin that is very concentrated specifically for people with Type 2 diabetes. No I am not a doctor, but I know someone with severe Type 2 diabetes and I know an ICU doctor who has to deal with diabetics on a regular basis.
> "Taking the vaccine through a clinical trial would cost some 700 million euros"
This is why I am always saying the FDA and similar organizations kill more than they save, by several orders of magnitude. All it takes is delaying introduction of one big cure by a few years and you've cost more lives than are lost because bad drugs get introduced too soon.
There were no mass epidemics from snake oil. Just watch "new" drugs carefully and stop as necessary.
It's a political issue, though, and a few hundred ill people before the camera is fodder for politicians to seize power with. Meanwhile nobody points out continued deaths for ancient diseases are far and away the bigger mass murderer than pharmacological companies-qua-snake oil salesmen.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.