Diabetes Awareness Month

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month and FDR continues to recognize the strides made each year in diabetes research.

Diabetes research has made great progress since the first discovery of insulin in 1921. However, children are still being diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes every day at increasing rates. For 21 years, the Foundation for Diabetes Research has been dedicated to its mission- to support scientific research aimed at a cure for Type-1 diabetes and prevention of its severe complications. This work is still critical today.

FDR is happy to announce that even in the face of a pandemic, the organization has been able to fund an additional $110,000 for the second year of the grant entitled “Immune changes in the honeymoon period at the single cell level” by Dr. Howard Davidson at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes. Attached is Dr. Davidson’s progress report and findings. FDR is proud to continue to support this groundbreaking research.

The support of our volunteers and community members has been the lifeblood of this organization. We thank you for your support from the bottom of our hearts and hope that you will continue to join us in achieving our goal- “A World Without Diabetes!”

Check out our Warriors in Blue from World Diabetes Day below!

Preparing for Sick Days during COVID-19

Healthy Eating on Holidays with Diabetes

Staying Active with Diabetes

FDR Current Grant

Since our inception in 1999, the Foundation for Diabetes Research (FDR) has raised over $7 million to support cutting-edge diabetes research. FDR is currently funding 2 large, multi-year grants from top diabetes researchers whose work may lead to future advances and therapies for type 1 diabetes. These grants include funding (1) an insulinoma biorepository, which is a frozen tissue bank of rare, often benign tumors of pancreatic beta cells which overproduce insulin (Dr Andy Stewart, Mt Sinai Hospital, NYC), and (2) the study of how to protect and improve the survival of transplanted beta cells (Dr Qizhi Tang, University of California at San Francisco; funding in partnership with the American Diabetes Association).

Background:

Dr. Howard Davidson of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes has received an FDR grant to fund research of immune changes in the honeymoon period at the single cell level. Such tumors may provide insights into how beta cells replicate and may, among other potential possibilities, provide drug targets for future therapies aimed at increasing beta cell numbers. The current paucity of validated mechanistic biomarkers is a major impediment to satisfying this critical need. Robust markers that can be used clinically to optimize patient selection, and to provide real time measures of efficacy, or predict outcomes, would likely increase the success rate of future clinical trials. This is particularly important given the growing appreciation that T1D is much more heterogenous than was previously realized, and consequent appreciation that once disease is established a “one size fits all” strategy may not work.This research is aligned with FDR’s mission to fund research aimed towards eventually finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. Click here to read Dr. Davidson’s research update!