Project description
Making ‘stressed’ β-cells invisible to the immune system to prevent type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes results from an autoimmune response, leading the body’s immune system to target and destroy insulin-producing β-cells in the pancreas. Immune therapy has not been successful in preventing it. The ERC-funded Beta-STEALTH project aims to investigate its recent discovery that ‘stressed’ β-cells produce neoantigens that provoke the body’s immune system, making it a natural rather than aberrant response. The focus will be on these ‘defective ribosomal product’ (DRiP) neoantigens. The project will investigate the mechanisms of their production and action, potential diagnostic tools targeting DRiP, and therapies including targeted drug delivery, selective immunotherapy, and cell therapy using gene editing.
Objective
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is generally believed to result from a mistake by the immune system leading to the autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing β-cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Based on my discoveries, I recently began to realise that the ‘mistake’ actually occurs in stressed β-cells, leading to the generation of neoantigens resulting from ribosomal infidelity (DRiP) that provoke the immune system to act. The immune system may actually respond with ‘good’ intentions, similar to the response to such neoantigens generated upon infection and in cancer. This could explain why immune intervention therapy alone has been quite disappointing in T1D, where the loss in β-cell function could at best only be delayed. I contend that we will need β-cell therapy for a durable intervention or even remission, likely in concert with immunotherapy, to keep β-cells from provoking the immune system. Thus, I propose to explore β-cell stress, autoimmunity, resilience and function in three levels:
Pathogenesis: understand the association of protective insulin gene variation with reduced β-cell stress and immunogenicity; explore the nature and function of β-cell stress product DRiP in β-cell development, heterogeneity, function and destruction;
Diagnostics: target DRiP to detect β-cell stress, immunogenicity and destruction; monitor autoimmunity to DRiP by islet autoreactive T-cells or autoantibodies;
Therapeutics: develop targeted delivery of drugs to distressed β-cells to foster recovery, mass and function and increase their stamina; restore immune tolerance by selective immunotherapy with islet neoantigens; generate a novel source of stem cell derived β-cells that have been equipped with resilience and superior function by gene-editing to reduce both stress and generation of neoantigens.
Through these objectives, I intend to eliminate the reasons for the immune system to harass β-cells by harnessing β-cells and turn these invisible (‘stealth’) to the immune system
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology genetic engineering gene therapy
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine endocrinology diabetes
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology cells technologies stem cells
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-ADG
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2333 ZA Leiden
Netherlands
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