Researchers at the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Centre at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada have successfully reversed type 1 diabetes in mice using a newly developed vaccine technology that aims to solely target the immune system cells responsible for the disease.

In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, the body's immune system mistakes healthy insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas for invading unwanted cells, and destroys them. Without the ability to produce insulin, which helps the body convert blood sugar to energy, on their own, diabetes patients must inject themselves with insulin regularly. While medications exist that can dampen the entire immune system, these treatments come with serious side effects, such as increased risk of infection. However, the Canadian researchers discovered that the body has a natural defense against autoimmune aggression—a counter-mechanism that produces immune system cells to fight the rogue immune cells that are harmful in type 1 diabetes.

These cells are known as memory-like autoregulatory T cells, and could potentially fight off the harmful cells in a diabetes patient, but they aren't as strong as the harmful cells and thus get overwhelmed. Researchers have been studying how to boost these autoregulatory T cells using a "nanotechnology-based" vaccine that consists of nanoparticles coated with antigens that bind to molecules and stimulate certain T cells.

Now that the trial has been proven successful in mice, researchers will move on to perfecting the vaccine for possible human clinical trials. If successful, this vaccine could have implications for many other autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of some autoimmune diseases.