Our resource hub is home to a wealth of articles, stories and videos about managing and living with type 1 diabetes.
Place your order for our free information packs that support adults and children who have been recently diagnosed.
Our researchers are working on different ways to develop a cure for type 1 diabetes - from growing insulin-producing beta cells in labs to hacking the immune system.
Learn about the technologies that can deliver insulin automatically when needed. And discover the next generation of insulins that are currently being developed.
You could win a cash prize of up to £25,000 when you play the Breakthrough T1D lottery. As well as the chance to win great prizes, you’ll also help fund our research to find a cure for type 1 diabetes.
Your donations help support people living with type 1 diabetes today and fund the best treatment and cure research, no matter where in the world it takes place.
The announcement is the biggest treatment breakthrough for type 1 diabetes since the discovery of insulin.
Join our Virtual Triathlon Challenge and swim, cycle and run while raising money to fund Breakthrough T1D’s life-changing type 1 research.
We provide a wealth of information and free resources to help you support and empower your patients or students.
Take our free course for schools to learn more about supporting pupils with type 1 diabetes in educational settings.
JDRF has now rebranded to Breakthrough T1D. Our name has changed, our mission has not.
Home > About Breakthrough T1D UK & our impact > Our research > Research projects > Boosting islet survival after transplantation using immune cells
In her JDRF-funded project at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Shareen Forbes will test whether giving immune cells called macrophages with islets results in better islet transplant outcomes. She will also study whether this technique could reduce the dose of anti-rejection drugs that people who have islet transplants need to take.
Islet transplants are a treatment for people with type 1 diabetes which involve putting islets (clusters of hormone-producing cells, including the cells that make insulin) from organ donors into the liver of someone else. The therapy can help people living with type 1 make some insulin again, but the procedure is not without its risks and challenges.
Over 60% of islets do not survive transplantation, mainly because of the recipient’s body rejecting the new cells. To combat this, recipients must take anti-rejection drugs (known as immunosuppressants), which increase their risk of infection and cancer.
Because of their low survival rate, lots of islets from multiple organ donors are needed for each islet transplant. There aren’t enough organ donors for everyone, meaning that waiting lists are long and not everyone who needs an islet transplant can have one. Increasing the number of islets that survive transplantation would mean fewer cells would be needed per person and more people with type 1 could benefit from the treatment.
Professor Shareen Forbes will give mice with type 1 diabetes islet transplants followed by a dose of macrophages. Macrophages are a type of immune cell which digest particles in the body ranging from invading bacteria to dying or cancerous cells. They can help reduce inflammation, fight immune rejection and promote blood vessel formation. Shareen’s team can grow macrophages in their lab that have proved safe in humans.
Her research team will observe the effect of this dual treatment on blood glucose levels. They will also explore the best methods for giving macrophages, and the optimal dose of the cells. If this treatment of islets and macrophages stabilises blood glucose levels in the mice, then the team will see if this effect remains after giving the mice immunosuppressant drugs. The researchers will also test if the dose of immunosuppressants can be decreased with the macrophages.
If Shareen and her team can show that macrophages can boost the survival of islet transplants in mice, the technique could be applied to human islet transplants in the future. This would help more people with type 1 benefit from islet transplants and reduce the dose of immunosuppressant drugs they need to take.
Shareen’s research project could also benefit therapies of islets grown from stem cells, which are cells that can transform into other cell types. Trials of stem cell therapies for type 1 diabetes are ongoing and may be improved in the future by giving macrophages with the lab-grown islets to improve the effectiveness of the treatment and limit the need for immunosuppressants.
Together with the Medical Research Council are co-funding Daniel Doherty’s PhD project. Dan aims to improve the survival of islets after transplantation into people with type 1 by creating a more supportive environment for islet cells in the liver.
We are funding another of Shareen’s research projects through the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge, our partnership with the Steve Morgan Foundation and Diabetes UK. In this research project Shareen is testing whether transplanting islets in packages with different combinations of drugs can help them survive and function.
We are funding Dr Kathleen Gillespie and her team at the University of Bristol to investigate whether existing tests, used to measure how well the pancreas works, can be used to help predict how quickly a person in the early stages of type 1 diabetes (T1D) will progress.
Dr Matthew Anson is studying whether hybrid closed loop technology, also known as an artificial pancreas, affects the worsening of diabetic eye disease.
Dr Samet Sahin is developing a simple tool to allow healthcare professionals to quickly and easily check someone’s C-peptide levels, a measure of how much insulin they are releasing.
Dr Thomas George Hill is studying a type of pancreatic islet cell, called a delta cell, which he thinks could be targeted with a treatment to help prevent low blood glucose in type 1 diabetes.