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Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a disease caused by autoimmune destruction of
insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, resulting in high blood sugar and
other metabolic abnormalities. Type 1 diabetes mellitus affects close to four
hundred thousand people in the US alone, and is usually diagnosed before
age 20. Its long-term consequences may include blindness, nerve damage
and kidney failure, and left untreated is rapidly fatal. Treatment
involves life-long administration of insulin or pancreas transplantation,
both of which may entail serious side effects.
The availability of drugs which selectively block Effector Memory T cells (TME) would offer the hope of preventing the development of the disease in its very early stages.
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