Finnish Team Makes Diabetes Vaccine Breakthrough 202
jones_supa writes "A team working at Tampere University, Finland has discovered the virus that causes type 1 diabetes. The enterovirus penetrates the pancreas and destroys insulin-producing cells, eventually causing diabetes. Researchers have looked at more than a hundred different strains of the virus and pinpointed five that could cause diabetes. They believe they could produce a vaccine against those strains. One virus type has been identified to carry the biggest risk. A vaccine could also protect against its close relatives, to give the best possible effect. A similar enterovirus causes polio, which has been almost eradicated in many parts of the world thanks to vaccination programmes. A prototype diabetes vaccine has already been produced and tested on animals. Taking the vaccine through a clinical trial would cost some 700 million euros. Some funding is in place from the United States and from Europe, but more is required. Professor Heikki Hyöty says that money is the biggest obstacle in moving to testing in humans, but he sees that people are interested in their research and that the funding problems will ultimately be solved."
THE virus is a bit of an overstatement (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:700 million euros? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone who blames the cost of health care on outlandishly priced medicine should have their eyelids removed and that article stapled to their face so they can read it several times a day. For perspective, I did the work for everyone.
AZN - $6.3B on revenues of $30B, 21% profit
GSK - $8.3 B on $42.5, 20% profit
SNY - 6.5B on $47B
RHHBY - $10.6B on $51.8B
PFE - $14.6B on $59B for 25% those bastards
JNJ - 10.9B on 67B
LLY - 4B on 22.6B
ABT - $6B on $40B
MRK - 6.1B on 47.2B
BMY - 2B on 18B - 11%, what is this, charity?
NVS - 9.6B on 58B
AMGN - 4B on 17B
Source: Yahoo finance numbers, the first result that didn't require scripts or images, for 2012 year ending December.
If you want to argue whether $500B in drugs is needed for a year for 7.1 billion people, most of whom either aren't sick or can't see a doctor, that's a different argument.
Every one of you mouthbreathing neckbeards who made a comment about gold plating, bribes, or other ridiculous nonsense need to either learn something about the world, or figure out why you are so resentful of a 20% profit margin.
Ever watch shark tank? They would shit on themselves rather than move over less than 200% profit margin, and then they look for bringing down cost after that. 20% is low for general consumer goods, and of course we aren't talking about consumer goods here but a comparison hopefully helps. The R&D costs are not so far off from the profits - meaning they could double their profits immediately in return for not having anything new to market in 5 years, and considering patents they would be busto in another 10 years. Barely skating by in business terms.
This has been suspected for some time... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a significant body of literature attempting to associate the onset of type 1 diabetes with infection by members of the species B enteroviruses, specifically CVB's (Coxsackieviruses B1 to B6) , if you search pubmed you will find hundreds of manuscripts. The problem has been nailing down a definitive causal relationship, from my understanding it is thought that there may be an element of molecular mimicry involved in the disease (or something similar). Essentially the virus infects the host and damages specific parts of the pancreas, the host's immune system mounts a response to the insult, but in the process creates antibodies that target the hosts own islet cells, resulting in the autoimmune disease that is type 1 diabetes. The problem of definitively implicating CVB's for type 1 diabetes is similar in some ways to that of other enterovirus infections like Polio. Basically there are other host mediated issues at play but with Polio you are able to detect the virus around the time of infection, with diabetes the disease presents after the infection has been cleared, complicating matters. To this day we still don't understand why only about 1% of people infected with Polio will develop paralysis, whilst the majority of people ~95% will show no significant signs of illness. Host factors are really important and not fully understood, there may even be a role for certain bacteria in the gut assisting the infection!
As a side note there has been some recent rumblings about the possibility of viral infections triggering transient type 2 diabetes, I can't link to any papers at the moment (too busy at work) but if anyone is interested I can have a dig around later.
Hopefully the vaccine is able to account for the amount of drift in the enterovirus genome that occurs at up to ~1% per annum, a similar problem exists with the new enterovirus 71 vaccine, an emerging bug similar in presentation to Polio.
What about P2RX7? (Score:5, Interesting)
P2RX7 [wikipedia.org] was all the hype back in January. Here's a blog [vectorblog.org] entry on it... Or the paper abstract [diabetesjournals.org] for the more technically inclined (pay-wall for paper)...
If people are interested, I think there is some more info in English concerning the earlier Tampere research here [nih.gov] (for free)...
Sometimes it's hard to predict what is going to work in bio-science just by seeing the techno-press response. Although polio is caused by an Enterovirus, so is the common cold (the variety caused by a Rhinovirus). Generally you get Enterovirus infections orally. Some Enteroviruses can eventually enter the bloodstream and infect other organs.
Apparently, the Tampere study looked at the small-bowel mucosal biopsies of 120 patients and did a PCR technique to assess if there was likely a Enterovirus infection. 74% of people with type 1 diabetes tested positive, compared with 29% of the non-diabetic ones. On that basis they conclude that a persistent Enterovirus infection in the small-bowel might eventually spread to the pancreas where the on-going immune response might destroy the insulin producing cells [wikipedia.org] leading to diabetes...
So, I wasn't totally impressed after reading that paper, but you never know...
Re:Isn't Type 1 largely genetic? (Score:4, Interesting)
The research suggests that the genetic predisposition causes the immune system to act different in response to the virus. If the research is correct, then yes you need both the genetic factor and the virus to get type-1 diabetes. Of course, that completely discounts any other possible methods of 'catching' the disease. Since it is an autoimmune disorder, there are likely multiple factors involved. If this pans out and cures the most common of those factors, it may still not eliminate the disease.
Re:Not much info (Score:4, Interesting)
Submitter here. I was able to locate the Finnish version from YLE News website [yle.fi]. There is indeed a possibility for that kind of translation error. I'll try to retranslate the top part:
A virus is being uncovered behind type I diabetes, a disease found especially in children. In particular, it is an enterovirus, which invades the pancreas and destroys the cells producing insuline. A vaccine against the viruses can be created.
There are over hundred of various enteroviruses. A research team conducted by virology professor Heikki Hyöty has gone through all the strains and has been able to mark out five of them which cause diabetes. They can be compiled into a vaccine.
"We have recognized one type of virus which carries the biggest risk factor. We could also put its relatives into the vaccine, to get the best possible effect", says professor Hyöty from University of Tampere.
Re:THE virus is a bit of an overstatement (Score:4, Interesting)
When in Rome.
Hey, you should be speaking Italian after that line. :^)
I understand there is confusion and misinformation in regards to diabetes in general. I won't attempt to claim to be an expert. But I don't accept the "myth" status regarding high sugar intake, when the myth-busting article itself admits there is a link. I don't accept it because it takes the most precise meaning of "x causes y" as an absolute, then in very inabsolute terms explains that the topic isn't well understood.
As I asked above, do we doubt the link between smoking and cancer, just because not all smokers get lung cancer?
Also, as Bitsy said and I agreed with, they should really call these conditions by different names. Make 'diabetes' be the condition when the pancreas isn't producing insulin because of damage from a virus (which generally happens at a young age), as the original story is about. Come up with a different name for when the body has become insulin-resistant due to dietary issues and lack of exercise. Then at least one more term for when the body isn't processing insulin correctly for other reasons, which may include results of an unrelated illness or a car accident.
They are medically different conditions, so why do they have the same name? They have half a dozen different terms for 'heart attack', which all have to do with one organ, but they can't come up with another term for "something's wrong with the patient's insulin".