BRI’s Alice Long, PhD is moving closer to a therapy for type 1 diabetes (T1D) that makes the T-cells responsible for the attack on the pancreas so exhausted that they surrender.

Dr. Long has dedicated her career to finding better therapies for the millions of people with T1D. She believes that understanding “T-cell exhaustion” could unlock therapies to stop the progression of T1D or prevent its onset in individuals who are high risk for developing the disease.

Previous research showed that people with autoimmune disease who have higher numbers of these exhausted cells have less severe disease and fewer complications.

In collaboration with BRI’s Peter Linsley, PhD, Dr. Long showed that T1D progresses more slowly in people who have higher numbers of exhausted CD8 T-cells. They also found that a drug called teplizumab increased exhausted CD8 T cells in most individuals. Even better, they demonstrated that treatment with this drug delayed the onset of T1D in people who were at high risk for developing the disease.

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