Introduction to the Polish branch of the INNODIA program

Introduction

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which the beta cells of the pancreas that produce insulin are destroyed by T lymphocytes [1]. According to the World Health Organization, in 2019 alone, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.5 million deaths [2].
So far, the disease process is not fully understood, and a cure has not yet been developed, which is why diabetes is one of the priority diseases under research in the World Health Organization’s first and second programmes of Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI1 and IMI2) [3]. Of the 13 projects funded by IMI until October 2019, only one was targeted to type 1 diabetes – INNODIA [3].

INNODIA – “To fight type 1 diabetes”

INNODIA is unique global multicentre research program that connects academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and patients. Thirty-one academic institutions, 6 industrial partners, a small sized enterprise, and 2 patient organizations [4] share one significant goal: “To fight type 1 diabetes”.
In the research facilities associated with the INNODIA program, blood samples and data are collected from newly diagnosed patients with type 1 diabetes and their first-degree relatives [4]. Data collected from numerous institutions will allow the study of the evolution of the disease in individual patients, help to develop new methods to predict relatives’ risk of developing disease, and eventually find a cure for patients with T1D.
To be able to develop better, more effective therapies for patients or to predict the individual risk of disease development in relatives, work is underway to identify new disease biomarkers that can be found in the blood of diabetic patients. For this purpose, advanced technologies and modern research tools that are already available or under development are being used.
Many years of research conducted in connection with the INNODIA project will allow us to better understand the relationship between changes in b-cell function, immune profiles, genetic and environmental factors, and their role in the onset of the disease [4].
Currently, the type 1 diabetes therapy concept consists mainly of insulin therapy, and the indication for insulin therapy is permanent and lifelong [5]. Therefore, the second major goal of INNODIA is to perform the clinical intervention studies VER-A-T1D, MELD-ATG, CFZ533, and IMPACT, which started in 2020 [4]. It will be possible to test new...


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