Many people who’ve recently received a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) immediately think, “When will there be a cure?”
While the potential for a cure has been dangling in front of people with T1D for what seems like forever, more researchers currently believe that gene therapy could finally — one day soon, even — be the so-called “cure” that’s been so elusive.
This article will explain what gene therapy is, how it’s similar to gene editing, and how gene therapy could potentially be the cure for T1D, helping millions of people around the world.
Gene therapy is a medical field of study that focuses on the genetic modification of human cells to treat or sometimes even cure a particular disease. This happens by reconstructing or repairing defective or damaged genetic material in your body.
This advanced technology is only in the early research phases of clinical trials for treating diabetes in the United States. Yet, it has the potential to treat and cure a wide range of other conditions beyond just T1D, including AIDS, cancer, cystic fibrosis (a disorder that damages your lungs, digestive tract, and other organs), heart disease, and hemophilia (a disorder in which your blood has trouble clotting).
For T1D, gene therapy could look like the reprogramming of alternative cells, making those reprogrammed cells perform the functions your original insulin-producing beta cells would otherwise perform. If you have with diabetes, that includes producing insulin.
But the reprogrammed cells would be different enough from beta cells so that your own immune system wouldn’t recognize them as “new cells” and attack them, which is what happens in the development of T1D.
While gene therapy is still in its infancy and available only in clinical trials, the evidence so far is becoming clearer about the potential benefits of this treatment.
In a 2018 study, researchers engineered alpha cells to function just like beta cells. They created an adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector to deliver two proteins, pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1 and MAF basic leucine zipper transcription factor A, to a mouse’s pancreas. These two proteins help with beta cell proliferation, maturation, and function.
Alpha cells are the ideal type of cell to transform into beta-like cells because not only are they also located within the pancreas, but they’re abundant in your body and similar enough to beta cells that the transformation is possible. Beta cells produce insulin to lower your blood sugar levels while alpha cells produce glucagon, which increases your blood sugar levels.
In the study, mouse blood sugar levels were normal for 4 months with gene therapy, all without immunosuppressant drugs, which inhibit or prevent the activity of your immune system. The newly created alpha cells, performing just like beta cells, were resistant to the body’s immune attacks.
But the normal glucose levels observed in the mice weren’t permanent. This could potentially translate into several years of normal glucose levels in humans rather than a longtime cure.
In this Wisconsin study from 2013 (updated as of 2017), researchers found that when a small sequence of DNA was injected into the veins of rats with diabetes, it created insulin-producing cells that normalized blood glucose levels for up to 6 weeks. That was all from a single injection.
This is a landmark clinical trial, as it was the first research study to validate a DNA-based insulin gene therapy that could potentially one day treat T1D in humans.
This was how the study worked:
The researchers are now working on increasing the time interval between therapy DNA injections from 6 weeks to 6 months to provide more relief for people with T1D in the future.
While this is all very exciting, more research is needed to determine how practical the therapy is for people. Eventually, the hope is that the AAV vectors could eventually be delivered to the pancreas through a nonsurgical, endoscopic procedure, in which a doctor uses a medical device with a light attached to look inside your body.
These kinds of gene therapy wouldn’t be a one-and-done cure. But it would provide a lot of relief to people with diabetes to perhaps enjoy several years of nondiabetes glucose numbers without taking insulin.
If subsequent trials in other nonhuman primates are successful, human trials may soon begin for the T1D treatment.
Does that count as a cure?
It all depends on who you ask because the definition of “a cure” for T1D varies.
Some people believe that a cure is a one-and-done endeavor. They see a “cure” as meaning you’d never have to think about taking insulin, checking blood sugars, or the highs and lows of diabetes ever again. This even means you wouldn’t have to ever go back to a hospital for a gene therapy follow-up treatment.
Other people think that a once-in-a-few-years treatment of gene editing may be enough of a therapy plan to count as a cure.
Many others believe that you need to fix the underlying autoimmune response to truly be “cured,” and some people don’t really care one way or another, as long as their blood sugars are normal, and the mental tax of diabetes is relieved.
One potential “one-and-done” therapy could be gene editing, which is slightly different from gene therapy.
The idea behind gene editing is to reprogram your body’s DNA, and if you have type 1 diabetes, the idea is to get at the underlying cause of the autoimmune attack that destroyed your beta cells and caused T1D to begin with.
Two well-known companies, CRISPR Therapeutics and regenerative med-tech company ViaCyte, have been collaborating for a few years to use gene editing to create islet cells, encapsulate them, and then implant them into your body. These protected, transplanted islet cells would be safe from an immune system attack, which would otherwise be the typical response if you have T1D.
The focus of gene editing is to simply cut out the bad parts of our DNA in order to avoid conditions such as diabetes altogether and to stop the continuous immune response (beta cell attack) that people who already have diabetes experience daily (without their conscious awareness).
The gene editing done by CRISPR in their partnership with ViaCyte is creating insulin-producing islet cells that can evade an autoimmune response. These technology and research are ever evolving and hold a lot of promise.
Additionally, a 2017 study shows that a T1Dcure may one day be possible by using gene-editing technology.
Both gene therapy and gene editing hold a lot of promise for people living with T1D who are hoping for an eventual future without needing to take insulin or immunosuppressant therapy.
Gene therapy research continues, looking at how certain cells in the body could be reprogrammed to start making insulin and not experience an immune system response, such as those who develop T1D.
While gene therapy and gene-editing therapy are still in their early stages (and much has been held up by the coronavirus disease 19 [COVID-19] pandemic), there’s a lot of hope for a T1D cure in our near future.
Last medically reviewed on June 22, 2022
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.
Current Version
Jun 22, 2022
By
Christine Fallabel
Edited By
Mike Hoskins
Medically Reviewed By
Kelly Wood, MD
Copy Edited By
Kristin Hitchcock
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