JDRF, the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes research,  announced the funding of an approximately $1 million collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Brehm Center and the Brehm Coalition to evaluate a new hypothesis on why beta cells lose their ability to produce insulin, resulting in a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D). In this proposed model of T1D, the loss of beta cell function may not be driven by beta cell death, as is widely believed, but rather by the regression of beta cells into a less mature state in which they are no longer able to produce insulin effectively, or at all. Proof of this model could open an entirely new therapeutic strategy, both to prevent T1D and to restore insulin production in individuals with the disease.

In previous work supported by the Brehm Center, researchers observed living but immature beta cells in animal models of diabetes, forming the basis for developing this novel hypothesis of beta cell regression. The new partnership between JDRF and Brehm aims to investigate the possibility that this proposed phenomenon plays a significant role in the loss of insulin production of beta cells in people with T1D. The new research – a key translational step in the evaluation of this hypothesis – will be carried out by a multidisciplinary team of eight leading scientists from seven universities, who make up the Brehm Coalition.

“Working with the Brehm Coalition allows us to look at this fundamental question about how type 1 diabetes develops from multiple perspectives simultaneously,” says David Wheadon, JDRF’s executive vice president of research and advocacy. “Bringing together immunology, beta cell biology, and both basic and clinical research helps to ensure that the research can move as quickly as possible, and that the discoveries made will be relevant and translatable to individuals with type 1 diabetes. If beta cells remain alive but regress in people with type 1 diabetes, there would be a paradigm shift in our understanding of how beta cells are affected by the disease process. Answering this key translational question could open up new therapeutic strategies for preserving and restoring the insulin-producing capacity of beta cells in people at all stages of the disease.”

Notes Dorene Markel, Brehm Center director and Coalition coordinator: “These scientists concluded in 2007, when they formed the Brehm Coalition, that medical research could be significantly accelerated by adopting a pattern of intimate collaboration in which they would work across traditional institutional boundaries rather than be constrained by them, sharing their data, their successes, and their failures as the research effort proceeded. Moreover, they would also be able to share the critical resources and infrastructure of the several universities involved, thereby taking advantage of the combined strengths of these institutions. Having JDRF as a key partner takes the collaboration to a new level, and we anticipate this joint project will not only advance science, but will serve as a demonstration of how team science can be done most effectively.”

This two-year partnership, the first of its kind between JDRF and the Brehm Center and Coalition, will support one of JDRF’s priority research areas aimed at preserving and restoring beta cell function. To learn more about JDRF’s efforts toward beta cell restoration, visit www.jdrf.org/restoration.

The Brehm Center was founded at the University of Michigan in 2004 by William K. and Delores S. Brehm as a leadership entity committed to the acceleration of the processes involved in scientific discovery and education through innovative, collaborative approaches aimed precisely at the complex challenges faced in modern medical science.