Inside City of Hope’sfor Type 1 DiabetesSEARCH FOR A CURE
Diabetes investigators at
City of Hope, a top-rated
cancer center, are speeding
toward a common goal:
eradicating Type 1 diabetes.
Building on past milestones,
as well as on the institution’s
acute understanding of
the power of the immune
system, researchers are
working on an integrated
approach to the disease.“I don’t think any other
research institution in
the country has made
as many contributions
to diabetes research as
we have here at City of
Hope,” said researcher
Arthur Riggs, Ph.D. In the
nineteen-seventies, Riggs,
a geneticist, worked with
the organic chemist Keiichi
Itakura, Ph.D., to synthesize
the first human protein
in bacteria, and used it toproduce human insulin,
which has become the
standard treatment for
diabetes worldwide.
For decades, the institution
has had one of the most
influential diabetes-research
programs in the world.
The institute’s scientists
have revolutionized
the understanding and
treatment of the disease.
Their work continues today
with exciting developments
in cell transplantation,
gene regulation, and
immune tolerance, as well
as a new understanding
of diabetes as a complex,
multifaceted disease.City of Hope envisions an
integrated approach for thefuture of Type 1 diabetes
care, one in which there
is a therapy appropriate
for every patient: a mix of
cellular therapies that renew
and protect beta cells,
immunotherapy,
islet cell transplantation,
and treatments to mitigate
complications. Furthermore,
the breakthroughs in
Type 1 diabetes from
City of Hope research also
represent progress against
Type 2 diabetes.To learn more about
City of Hope and
The Wanek Family Project
for Type 1 Diabetes, visit
CityofHope.org/Diabetes.The institution has
revolutionized
diabetes care by
discovering insulin’s
role in processing
sugar, identifying a
marker for glucose
control in the blood
and creating the
technology that gave
the world synthetic
human insulin.