Virtual Medical Centre

Young diabetes patient hopes to help others by testing arthritis drug

Albright is one of four local participants enrolled in a first-of-its-kind medication study at the Vanderbilt Eskind Pediatric Diabetes Clinic. It’s part of the national Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet series of studies, this one testing an arthritis drug called Abatacept to see if it can stop a rogue immune system from killing the body's precious insulin-producing cells.

The key in this study is that the war has just begun. Participants must be within the first 100 days of diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Albright has diabetes, and although he hasn’t yet reached the point of needing insulin shots, doctors know he will.

“Sometimes it takes only a few weeks, sometimes it can take a few years, but in the end with type 1 diabetes, all the insulin-producing cells are destroyed. What we are trying to do is to rescue at least some percentage of the cells,” said William Russell, MD, director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt's principal investigator for the study.

In autoimmune disorders, certain triggers in the immune system are overactive and can cause the immune system to become destructive. Doctors now know this is one of the mechanisms involved in the destruction of insulin-producing cells (beta cells) in type 1 diabetes.

Abatacept is already approved to quell rheumatoid arthritis in children, because it binds to a crucial trigger in the T cells of the immune system. The hope is by continually tying up the triggers through regular infusions of Abatacept, the immune system will be quieted and insulin-producing beta cells will be spared.