• Goal Area 1: To Restore Normal Blood Glucose Levels
• Goal Area 2: To Prevent and Reverse Complications
• Goal Area 3: To Prevent Type 1 Diabetes

Goal Area 1: To Restore Normal Blood Glucose Levels

If you ask people with type 1 diabetes what gift they would most like from science and they will probably say 'normal blood sugars'. They might talk about 'not having to take shots' or 'not worrying about kidney disease' or 'not having hypos'; but their most basic wishes would be fulfilled by having normal blood glucose levels independent of insulin injections.

A normal blood glucose level is called 'euglycaemia' and one of JDRFs most important research goals is to find a safe and effective way to restore euglycaemia in people with type 1 diabetes. Success will mean not only insulin independence for life, but also a life free from the risk of developing the serious health complications associated with diabetes.

JDRF funds research focuses on replacing the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas that have been destroyed by the immune system, through islet transplantation.

Research funded by JDRF in this area encompasses:

• islet transplantation and immune tolerance
• cell therapy and beta cell development
• stem cell therapy
• non invasive glucose sensing devices
• metabolic/hormone action

Goal Area 2: To Prevent and Reverse Complications

Diabetes is linked to several serious and often devastating health complications, including eye disease, kidney disease, heart disease and nerve disease.

The landmark Diabetes Control & Complications Trial showed that people with diabetes who tightly control their blood glucose levels are more likely to postpone the development of many of these complications. Yet blood glucose doesn't tell the whole story. People with the best diabetes control sometimes develop complications while some of those with poor control manage to evade them.
Diabetic complications result from damage to blood vessels after long term exposure to high blood glucose levels.

Microvascular complications such as diabetic eye disease (retinopathy), diabetic nerve disease (neuropathy) and diabetic kidney disease (nephropathy) involve small blood vessels and are uniquely related to diabetes. People who don't have diabetes rarely develop these conditions.

Macrovascular complications involve large blood vessels and arteries, which are primarily associated with heart function. While no-one is protected entirely from macrovascular disease, diabetes significantly increases the risk.

Research funded by JDRF in this area encompasses:

• genetic susceptibility
• vascular inflammation
• hypoglycaemia

Goal Area 3: To Prevent Type 1 Diabetes

For decades, JDRF has strongly supported research efforts to prevent type 1 diabetes.

Thanks to JDRF funded research, some of the most fundamental questions have already been answered. We now know that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease - a result of the body's own immune system launching an attack and ultimately destroying the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. Studies have also revealed that our genetic make up determines, in part, to what extent we are susceptible to the disease. Early research showed some sort of environmental factor is also involved, triggering the autoimmune attack in susceptible people.

To speed the pace of research into preventing type 1 diabetes, JDRF provides opportunities and resources for collaboration, information exchange and interaction between leading experts around the world. Recent advances have helped researchers unravel and define many of the complex autoimmune mechanisms involved in the destruction of ? cells and research efforts are now underway to successfully intervene and halt the disease process.

Unlike research to restore normal blood glucose levels or reduce the risk of complications, research to prevent type 1 diabetes is about people who don't have diabetes. We are essentially aiming to develop a therapy safe enough to administer to healthy people, most of whom are children.

Since the 1980s, scientists have uncovered 19 different genetic associations to type 1 diabetes. More research is required to understand how these genes function, how they influence diabetes susceptibility and how they interact with environmental influences. This will allow us to identify people at high risk for type 1 diabetes at birth and develop better intervention therapies and prevention strategies.

Research funded by JDRF in this area encompasses:

• genetics and genomics
• preservation of beta cell mass