Professor Noel Morgan, Director of the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at the Peninsula Medical School, commented: "Our findings are significant because they challenge current thinking and offer the hope that, at some point in the future, a therapy could be developed that would allow individuals who are developing type 1 diabetes to retain their own insulin. We are a long way from this point, but the first steps have been taken with this research."

He added: "We could not have come to our current conclusions without access to the unique collection of pancreas specimens from patients who died soon after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which was collected by our colleague Dr. Alan Foulis from the Department of Pathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The specimens are allowing us to investigate the cellular processes that occur in the beta cells of people with type 1 diabetes in a way that has not been possible before."

Karen Addington, CEO at JDRF said: "Interventions to halt and reverse the onset of type 1 diabetes are a fundamental part of JDRF's objective to cure, treat and prevent type 1 diabetes and its complications, and these results inform our global research programme. These are early stage findings, but we are positive about the impact this could have for people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the future."

Source: The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry