Category: type 1 diabetes

ATIC

ATIC

The Australasian Type 1 Diabetes Immunotherapy Collaborative (ATIC) officially launched at the Australasian Diabetes Congress in Brisbane on the 10th August 2022.

The ATIC Team from L-R: Dr Michelle So, A.Prof. John Wentworth, Dr Michaela Waibel, Prof. Tom Kay, Prof Helen Thomas, Ms. Candice Hall.

What is ATIC?

The Australasian Type 1 Diabetes Immunotherapy Collaborative (ATIC) is a clinical trials network of adult and paediatric endocrinologists, immunologists, clinical triallists and members of the type 1 diabetes (T1D) community.

Immunotherapies have been shown to blunt the immune attack on the pancreas that occurs in people with type 1 diabetes. ATIC’s work will discover the safest and most effective immunotherapy treatments.

The ATIC team are working across six domains with the bold vision to fast-track immunotherapy treatment options for people with type 1 diabetes.

  1. Clinical Trials: Implement immunotherapy trials for type 1 diabetes
  2. Community Engagement: Ensure ATIC’s work meets the needs of people living with type 1 diabetes
  3. Pre-clinical & Translation: Help transform scientific discoveries into effective treatments
  4. Data management: Facilitate data driven research
  5. Education and training around the fundamentals of immunotherapy, and the latest research on its use in type 1 diabetes
  6. Advocacy, regulation and government: Drive regulatory approval and government funding of immunotherapy treatments for type 1 diabetes.

ATIC facilitates immunotherapy clinical trials across a network of leading clinical trial centres. ATIC can advise on mechanisms for obtaining trial funding, assist with initial ethics approvals, oversee trial conduct, and support participant recruitment efforts to ensure clinical trials are delivered on time and within budget.

For more information, take a look at the new website at: https://atic.svi.edu.au/

Type1Screen has made screening simple

Edward proudly showing his bandaid after his fingerprick test

Type1Screen is entering a really exciting phase.

We have just rolled out finger prick tests that families can perform at home and mail back to our lab. Our new antibody assay allows us to get a result back to families a little sooner than the standard assay based on a formal blood collection.

Early diagnosis of type 1 diabetes is really important. It allows us to monitor children for signs of progression and, if this occurs, to start insulin injections in good time and prevent serious illness, which currently affects a third of our children. Not all positive screens progress quickly and in many cases we have time to offer opportunities to join immunotherapy prevention studies.

We really hope that the blood spot screening test will make it much easier for families to access screening, particularly those living in regional communities.

If you would like to see just how simple it is to get screened, please contact us to receive a kit to use at home. If you want to help us spread the word about this program, please tag us online @Type1Screen.

Ultimately, we want to make screening accessible to every Australian child. Type1Screen will take us closer to this goal by demonstrating to the world that we can perform cheap and accurate screening in a timely manner and at scale.

Brave Maeve did a fingerprick test at home with help from her mum

Trial for new T1D diagnosis

IMPACT Study for those newly diagnosed with T1D

Type1Screen is supporting the enrolment of young adults with a recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) to a new drug trial. This randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-centre clinical trial will evaluate the treatment of the Imotope™ IMCY-0098 and its effect on the preservation of beta-cell function in people with a recent onset T1D.

Aim

The study aims to investigate the effect of two doses of IMCY-0098 upon treatment-specific biomarkers and the effect of study medication on beta-cell function in adults with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes.

Eligibility to take part

  • Aged 18 to 44 years
  • Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (first insulin treatment) within 9 weeks of study screening visit.

How do I take part?

  • Contact Type1Screen via
    • email type1screen@mh.org.au
    • phone (03) 9342 7063

Type1Screen receives DARP funding

Type1Screen receives Diabetes Australia Research (DARP) funding

We’re grateful to Diabetes Australia for a generous grant to help us bring the home testing risk screening kits over the finish line and out to families.

A. Prof John Wentworth was interviewed recently by former professional Australian rules footballer, Jack Fitzpatrick, for the Diabetes Victoria podcasts. Jack lives with type 1 diabetes himself.

The interview discussed the advancement of risk screening for type 1 diabetes and the aim to identify people in the earliest stages of the condition as possible to:

1. offer current and emerging immunotherapy trials and treatments, and

2. avoid severe illness and hospitalisation

Hear the full interview here: https://www.diabetesvic.org.au/podcasts 

Thanks to the Lions Australia Diabetes Foundation

Thanks to the Lions Australia Diabetes Foundation

The earlier someone is diagnosed with diabetes, the more insulin-producing (beta) cells in the pancreas are preserved, providing an opportunity to slow or stop further destruction and ultimately prevent the need for insulin injections.

Associate Professor John Wentworth and our team are working to produce an in-home finger prick blood test to identify children destined to develop type 1 diabetes. Once validated, the screening test will identify those with the most to gain from preventative therapies and protect them from critical illness requiring admission to hospital.

We’re so grateful to have the support of the Lions Australia Diabetes Foundation for this project. Recently, Lion Harry Brindley ASM (pictured left) met with A/Prof Wentworth (right) at the Walter and Eliza WEHI to discuss the project and present a much-appreciated cheque for $28,750

Type 1 Foundation does it again

Another amazing fundraising effort from the Type 1 Foundation

We are extremely proud and humbled to be the recipients of over $2500 raised by the Type 1 Foundation during November 2021. 

CEO, Ange McCaughley, led the “Big Thirst? Think First! ” campaign to raise awareness of the common symptoms of type 1 diabetes.

The 4 Ts are: thirst; thinner; tired; and toilet!

During this initiative, they sold drink bottles to remind people of one of the very common symptoms, thirst.

The drink bottle campaign was a huge success; not only in terms of the fundraising but also the awareness it created around the wider community knowing symptoms of type 1 diabetes to look out for. 

Sincere thanks to Ange and her amazing team at Type 1 Foundation for their funding, advocacy and support for our research. We will put all proceeds towards our current effort to make in-home type 1 diabetes risk testing a reality.

Ultimately, we’re all working towards the same goal to make type one type none!

Finger prick test for Type1Screen

Finger prick test for Type1Screen

… launching in 2022!

Type1Screen is working hard to accurately identify if the early markers of type 1 diabetes are present (or not) from a finger prick blood spot sample.

Many Type1Screen participants have provided both finger prick test (capillary blood) and needle in the arm (venous blood) samples. Thank you all soooooo much! These samples are helping us to validate a new test or “assay” to accurately determine someone’s risk of type 1 diabetes.

We are still in the process of validating the finger prick assay. This means that we are testing to make sure that the assay reliably finds early markers of type 1 diabetes (islet auto-antibodies – IAs) if there are any IAs in the blood. Equally, we want to make sure that the test does not find IAs when there are no antibodies present in the blood.

The finger prick assay is more complex than the regular assay that uses a venous blood sample. A spot of blood is put on a card, but the sample tends to degrade (breakdown) a little in the post. This makes it more difficult to extract any antibodies from the sample to do the test.

Our recent results comparing both methods tell us that might will miss some children who actually do have islet autoantibodies using the blood spot sample method. We are working hard to make the assay more reliable.

The aim is to be ready to launch the new do-it-yourself in the home assay in 2022. Stay tuned!

Help us help others at risk of T1D

Support Type1Screen

Help us help others at risk of type 1 diabetes.

Type1Screen’s ultimate goal is to develop cheap and accurate screening for every Australian child to ensure early diagnosis, prevent hospitalisation and develop immune therapies that turn type one into type none.

We are currently working up a blood spot assay that can be collected in the home. We missed out on a grant in 2021 to progress this work and must now reach out directly to our supporters to develop this test.

Could you help us keep helping others by making a tax-deductible donation at:

https://royal-melbourne-hospital.giveeasy.org/ScreenPrevent?

You can help us play a critical role in convincing Government that universal type 1 diabetes screening both improves health and decreases health costs.

THANK YOU!

Updated consent forms

Updated Type1Screen consent forms

  • explaining consent to mum and child

To those extremely observant people who have noticed a change in our participant information and consent forms (PICFs)… you are extremely observant!!!

It is true that we have uploaded version 3 of our PICFs to the “Home” and “What’s Involved” web pages.

The update was to ensure that participants and their families are prepared for the fact that news of a positive islet autoantibody screen can be very stressful.

The new PICF also includes exciting developments in our antibody assays, which will allow for home finger prick sample collection. This will be up and running in the near future. Stay tuned.

You can also download the PICF for minors aged 2-18 years by clicking on this link, and for adults aged 18-30 at this link.