About T1D

Type 1 Diabetes - T1D

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a serious chronic disease affecting around 17 Million of people worldwide. The disease can present at any age, but typically starts in childhood or adolescence, leaving the people dependent on external insulin for survival. The true cause of T1D remains at present unknown, thus also rendering all prevention efforts or efforts to arrest progression of the disease at present unsuccessful.

We did come however already a long way in recent years, with insights into the processes leading to the disease: we have learned that in T1D a selective destruction of the insulin-producing beta-cell in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas by the immune system is at the basis. Why the beta-cell is attacked, by which cells, why this disease starts at a certain time-point and who will get it, are still unanswered questions. A challenge is that by the time of diagnosis only a small number of beta cells making insulin are left in the pancreas and most people with T1D eventually stop producing insulin themselves. This may occur rapidly in a few months or over several years. We know that the longer you can produce your own insulin, the better it is for the control of your blood glucose (BG) levels and long-term complications.

The goal of INNODIA is to get better insights in the path of beta-cell destruction, in order to better understand the disease and come to prevention or arrest of the autoimmune destruction of the beta-cells, thus preventing or arresting progression of T1D.