A chat with a colleague in the US led Professor Kerry-Anne Rye, Deputy Head of Research at University of NSW’s School of Medical Sciences, to embark on research that may revolutionise treatment for type 1 diabetes. “It started as a crazy conversation over a cup of coffee and has now turned into a reality,” she says.

In type 1 diabetes, the beta cells in the pancreas, which produce insulin, are attacked by immune cells. “Eventually, people with type 1 diabetes have no beta cells left,” says Professor Rye. “It’s not uncommon for 80 percent of the beta cells in a person’s pancreas to be destroyed before they show any symptoms.”

Currently, the only treatment available for people with type 1 diabetes is to inject themselves with insulin as they have no beta cells left to produce it. She says the goal of any new treatment option is freeing people from having to constantly monitor their blood glucose levels and use cumbersome equipment like insulin pumps.

Her cross-country conversation now means there may eventually be a way to produce new beta cells in the pancreas, which would eliminate the need for insulin injections.

Professor Rye’s US colleague works with peptides in people with cardiovascular disease. “These are like small snippets of a protein,” she says. “He has developed peptides that mimic some naturally occurring proteins.”

“He developed a peptide that was potentially useful for treating some aspects of cardiovascular disease. I asked him, ‘Do you think it might have any impact on diabetes?’ So, he sent me some of these peptides and, lo and behold, they worked.”

Professor Rye and her team performed detailed studies on the cultured cells. “We put the preliminary cell data in a small grant application to Diabetes Australia,” she says. “That gave us some money to do the first animal experiment, which worked absolutely beautifully. The peptide made new beta cells in the mice.”

The results from this small study supported by the Diabetes Australia Research Program enabled Professor Rye to apply for a much larger grant from the National Health and Medical Research

Council. “These grants are really competitive, but we got the funding at the end of last year and I was so happy.”

Her team are now working on the next study, which also uses mice. “We know we’re making beta cells, but we don’t know if they’re going to be destroyed by the immune system,” says Professor Rye. “If they are, I’m also working with a chemist so we can formulate the peptide so that there’s a controlled, slow release. So hopefully, even when the beta cells are destroyed, new ones will be created to take their place.

“It’s a long road but these grants will give us the money to get robust data. If this study works, the next step is a bigger animal, like a non-human primate – these are super-expensive studies.”

Professor Rye says the Diabetes Australia Research Program grant was the first step in the long journey of making her dream of eliminating the need for insulin injections a reality. “Ever since doctors and scientists realised people were dying from diabetes because they couldn’t make insulin, this has been the holy grail.

“I don’t know if it’s going to work, but it’s the first time I’ve been aware of any agent that has the potential to remove, or at least reduce, the need for insulin.”