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."

Comments

Not much info

[Okian Warrior]

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?

Re:Not much info

[gl4ss]

it sounds legitimate. finnish articles don't have that much more info. they're gathering money for trials. but the source in finnish medical scene should be treated legitimate from what I know(it's a well known big university in Finland, from Finlands 2nd biggest city). diabetes-alliance(not probably best translation..) treats it as legitimate, the mentioned prof admits that so far it is not water tight connection yet. it's related to gene sampling and following of kids with high risk of diabetes 1, that project starting back in 1994.

there's two things in play, the virus and a genetic factor(a risk gene, which is supposed to fight the virus).

more info in finnish:
http://www.diabetes.fi/diabetesliitto/lehdet/diabetes-lehden_juttuarkisto/diabeteksen_ehkaisy/enterovirusten_salat_aukenevat.2246.news

earlier stuff on the connection between the virus has been published in british medical journal, fwiw.

Re:Not much info

[niftydude]

The journal paper the news article is based on seems to be here: http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/30/db13-0620.short

Abstract:

Enteroviruses have been connected to type 1 diabetes in various studies. The current study evaluates the association between specific enterovirus subtypes and type 1 diabetes by measuring type-specific antibodies against the group B coxsackieviruses (CBV) which has been linked to diabetes in previous surveys. Altogether 249 children with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes and 249 control children matched according to sampling time, gender, age and country were recruited in Finland, Sweden, England, France and Greece during the years 2001-2005 (mean age 9 years; 55 % boys). Antibodies against CBV1 were more frequent among diabetic children than in control children (OR=1.7, 95%CI=1.0-2.9) while other CBV types did not differ between the groups. CBV1-associated risk was not related to HLA genotype, age or gender. Finnish children had lower frequency of CBV antibodies than children in other countries. The results support previous studies suggesting an association between group B coxsackieviruses and type 1 diabetes, highlighting the possible role of CBV1 as a diabetogenic virus type.

Re:Not much info

[nbauman]

it sounds legitimate.

I review stuff like this for a living. This does look like a legitimate, promising study.

The guy has done a lot of research. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Hy%C3%B6ty%2C+Heikki%5BAuthor+-+Full%5D

TFA doesn't say what the virus is, but I guess that it's group B coxsackievirus 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxsackie_B_virus#Diabetes that Hyöty was working on.

That said, it's a mouse study. I always used to say, "Mice, humans, what's the difference? We're all mammals, right?"

Then a researcher at Rockefeller University clued me in. "Humans are not big mice."

As the saying goes, "We've cured cancer in mice a million times."

It's great to model a disease in mice. But the diabetes type I they model in mice might not be the same as type I diabetes in humans. Probably for every 10 mouse studies, 1 holds up in humans. And for every 10 human studies, 1 turns out to be actually useful against the disease.

But hey, this is immunology. When it comes down to what causes a disease like diabetes type I, nobody really knows, so 1 in 100 is pretty good odds.

If you have 100 researchers working on it, you've got a pretty good chance that somebody will get it.

Diabetes type I is an autoimmune disease. You get exposed to a trigger, your immune system goes after the trigger, but it also starts attacking other things. In diabetes type I, it attacks the beta cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_Type_I The trigger might be a virus, or it might be something else. Hyöty thinks it's a virus, in fact group B coxsackievirus 1. If he can prove that it is a virus and he's identified it (in humans, not just mice), he'll be doing pretty good.

And if Hyöty can come up with a vaccine that will prevent coxsackievirus infection in humans, we can give it to kids and they'll never get diabetes type I. That will be great. I hope it works.

”We know that this vaccine is effective in mice,” noted Hyöty. ”It is important to test it in people, so that we can be sure that the vaccine prevents diabetes.

That's the important qualification. If he's ready to go to test it in humans, that's pretty good. But he's still got a long way to go. And a lot of vaccines don't make it.

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.

Oh, give him the money. We've wasted E700 million on a lot of stupider things that you could probably think of.

If this vaccine is promising, then the big pharmaceutical companies will probably spot him E700 million for clinical trials (although that does seem a bit high). If it really does prevent type I diabetes, it should be a successful vaccine.

Re:Not much info

[Novus]

That's almost certainly a translation error. The University of Tampere press release states that "these studies clearly show that members of the group B coxsackieviruses are associated with the risk of type 1 diabetes", and the offending sentence in the Yle article would be the same in Finnish irrespective of whether the virus found is the only one or not (e.g. "löytänyt viruksen" would be "discovered a/the virus"). Finnish grammar doesn't have the concept of definiteness, meaning that a translator working from a Finnish source text would in many cases have to guess the intended meaning or look it up elsewhere. For similar reasons, many Finns have problems figuring out whether to use a definite or indefinite article when writing in English.

Re:Not much info

[dinfinity]

Imagine living in a town called that: "The virus family he discovered was eventually given the name Coxsackie, for the town of Coxsackie, New York, a small town on the Hudson River where Dalldorf had obtained the first fecal specimens.[3]"
"The village name is a native word mak-kachs-hack-ing, and when purchased by the Dutch settlers was written as Koxhackung.[1] It is generally translated as "Hoot-owl place"[2] or "place of many owls"."

But I'm pretty sure Dalldorf et al didn't care about the latter and still giggle when hearing their peers say Coxsackievirus.

Re:Not much info

[Joining Yet Again]

The great thing about the C++ Hello World example is that it simultaneously shows everything that's nice and everything that's horrible about C++.

progress is good

[Gravis Zero]

progress toward making a vaccine is good and all but when will they finnish it. ;)

Re:progress is good

[NoMaster]

... but when will they finnish it. ;)

There's norway to know; it'll be dane when they're sweden ready.

Type 1 v Type 2 diabetes

[timeOday]

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.

Re:Type 1 v Type 2 diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

A cure would be a huge deal.

Fortunately for potential, future, type 1 diabetics, this is a vector for prevention. Unfortunately for those of us who are already type 1 diabetics, this does not appear to be a cure.

The key to type 1 is that it is a disease of the immune system. If this virus actually caused diabetes, then diabetes would be a communicable disease, and everyone who got exposed to the virus would become diabetic. Instead, the disease is genetically inherited and only expresses itself if the person is exposed to a certain class of virus. What this virus does is elicit an immune response from people. In a small percentage of people who have inherited a defect in their immune system, their bodies react by producing antibodies that do not just kill off the virus in question, but also kill off the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. It appears that these researchers have found that class of virus, but it is the diabetics immune response to the viruses that kills insulin production.

If you inherit the defect, and don't ever get exposed to the virus, you don't become diabetic. If you are exposed to the virus and aren't genetically keyed to produce these T-cells that are lethal to your insulin producing cells, then you don't become diabetic.

I became a type 1 at 28, after I was sick for a week. My father became type 1 at 32. They used to call it Juvenile Diabetes, but obviously that is a misnomer. The later you get exposed to the virus, the later you become diabetic.

Re:THE virus is a bit of an overstatement

[kyle3489]

That would be type 2 diabetes. Some of the already-described causes of type 1 are genetic (as opposed to this virus).

Re:THE virus is a bit of an overstatement

[I'm New Around Here]

Myth: eating too much sugar causes diabetes

Do you guys even bother reading your own links?

Myth: Eating too much sugar causes diabetes.

Fact: The answer is not so simple. Type 1 diabetes is caused by genetics and unknown factors that trigger the onset of the disease [editor: we know this, that isn't what the debate is about]; type 2 diabetes is caused by genetics and lifestyle factors.

Being overweight does increase your risk for developing type 2 diabetes, and a diet high in calories from any source contributes to weight gain. Research has shown that drinking sugary drinks is linked to type 2 diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association recommends that people should limit their intake of sugar-sweetened beverages to help prevent diabetes. Sugar-sweetened beverages include beverages like:

        regular soda
        fruit punch
        fruit drinks
        energy drinks
        sports drinks
        sweet tea
        other sugary drinks.

These will raise blood glucose and can provide several hundred calories in just one serving!

Rubycodez isn't saying a certain amount of sugar directly causes diabetes in all cases. He is saying consuming large amounts of sugar is tied to the onset of diabetes. Which is what the American Diabetes Association also says.

This has been suspected for some time...

[aussie.virologist]

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.