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UF To Be Part
Of National Diabetes Trial Network
RELEASE DATE: Jan.
16, 2002
For more information
contact:
Paula Rausch, 352/392-2755, E-mail: prausch@vpha.health.ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE, Fla.---The
National Institutes of Health has selected the University
of Florida to be part of a 14-center nationwide network
that will conduct studies of agents to prevent type
1 diabetes.
The NIH will award
more than $2 million over the next seven years to
Desmond Schatz, M.D., to establish and oversee a clinical
trial center at UF as part of a group to be called
TrialNet. Schatz, the principal investigator, is a
professor in the College of Medicine's department
of pediatrics and medical director of the UF Diabetes
Center.
Network institutions
will work together to institute, design and carry
out multiple trials using a variety of medications
in diverse populations in an effort to find ways to
prevent and delay progression of type 1 diabetes,
which afflicts an estimated 1 million people in the
United States.
The studies are
expected to boost knowledge about the causes and development
of the immune-system disorder, which occurs when the
body's infection-fighting white blood cells attack
the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
Schatz will work
closely with other UF scientists Michael Clare-Salzler,
M.D., an associate professor of pathology, immunology
and laboratory medicine, who is co-principal investigator;
Andrew Muir, M.D., clinical assistant professor, and
Janet Silverstein, M.D., a professor and chief, both
of the department of pediatrics' division of endocrinology;
and William Winter, M.D., professor, Jin-Xiong She,
Ph.D., professor, and Mark Atkinson, Ph.D., professor,
all in the department of pathology, immunology and
laboratory medicine.
Type 1 diabetes
is a chronic disease treated with daily injections
of insulin to help regulate how the body uses and
stores sugar and other nutrients. It often causes
major complications, including damage to blood vessels,
which can lead to heart disease, stroke, blindness
and kidney failure.
"There's a growing
incidence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, which causes
significant morbidity and mortality," Schatz said.
"We've clearly got to stop it."
The research is
an extension of the nation's first Diabetes Prevention
Trial studies under way at UF and other institutions
to determine whether insulin injections can be given
to prevent type 1 diabetes in people at risk for developing
it. Initial findings indicate that insulin injections
do not work as a preventative measure, Schatz said,
so other agents will be tested through TrialNet.
Researchers hope
to begin clinical trials of new agents in the next
six to 12 months. The study will involve relatives
of people with diabetes who are at high risk of developing
the disease, as well as individuals who are in its
early stages.
Among the other
institutions selected to be part of TrialNet are the
University of Miami, Stanford University in California,
University of California in San Francisco, the University
of Colorado in Denver and the University of Washington
in Seattle.
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020116H4424
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