Two researchers from the medical school were recently part of a collaboration that led to a breakthrough study about Type 1 diabetes.
Craig A. Beam, PhD, professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Alyssa Woodwyk, MS, a biostatistician in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, were part of a 16-person team led by Mark Peakman, a professor at King鈥檚 College London, that authored the research article 鈥淎utoreactive T effector memory differentiation mirrors B cell function in type 1 diabetes.鈥
The article, which was the result of a collaboration that began in 2015, was , a leading publication on translational research.
Dr. Beam, who designed the study and analyzed key data, said the research paper is an important milestone as it is the first to ever establish a direct connection between an immunological change and endogenous insulin production in Type 1 diabetes. He said the team was able to conduct a longitudinal study of the immune system and discern the components of the immune system that are associated with insulin production and loss.
That knowledge, Dr. Beam said, is pivotal and may open the door to successful immunotherapies for Type 1 diabetes.
鈥淭his was important to me,鈥 Dr. Beam said. 鈥淚 developed a new way to analyze data to connect immune system data with clinical outcomes. Those are probably some of the biggest accomplishments I鈥檝e made in my career.鈥
Woodwyk, who is listed as second author on the research paper, worked on the project for the better part of two years calculating outcome measures, as well as modeling to determine which immune factors were significant in predicting beta cell loss.
Her work and that of Dr. Beam, Woodwyk said, provided the 鈥渄ata backbone鈥 for the important study.
鈥淭o me, it鈥檚 a feather in our cap,鈥 Woodwyk said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been a great learning opportunity for me using methods I haven鈥檛 used previously for statistics.鈥
As they move forward, Dr. Beam said the work by him and Woodwyk, and the other researchers, is not done and the next steps are already underway. Those next steps, he said, include trying to characterize the immune components researchers have been able to measure as a system to see if the early signals of the effects of treatment can successfully be detected.
The information, Dr. Beam said, will be valuable in helping accelerate the production of immunotherapies for patients to slow down or halt Type 1 diabetes.
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