Diabetes: Promising discoveries

Imagine that your daily survival depends on measuring your blood sugar levels by pricking the tip of your finger three to ten times a day (and sometimes during the night) in addition to injecting yourself with insulin.

Now imagine that you don’t have to worry about that anymore... This is the glimmer of hope foreseen by Dr. Lesage’s team of reseachers as they study an innovative therapeutic approach to treat type 1 diabetes. The goal of the study is to harness a type of cells that would help prevent the disease. By restoring these cells, which are associated with susceptibility for diabetes when present in a too small number, it would be possible to develop preventive cellular therapies. Thanks to a generous donation from the Liana’s Dream Foundation and to the proximity of the Centre of Excellence for Cellular Therapy (CECT), established at the HMR in 2013, Dr. Lesage’s work could lead to clinical trials by the year 2020.