Randi Johnson
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Genetics
Why does a viral infection seem to trigger type 1 diabetes in some children but not others? Type 1 diabetes (T1D) happens when the immune system mistakenly destroys the insulin-making islet cells of the pancreas, and it has become more common worldwide for decades.
- Fields
Genetics
Microbiology & Immunology
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
type 1 diabetes
islet autoimmunity
enterovirus
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2029
What they work on
- Build a high-resolution catalog of structural and functional variation in the MHC and KIR immune gene regions by targeted sequencing in more than 2,900 at-risk children, combined with existing array data and algorithms for NK cell and complement activation potential.
- Test whether genetic variation controlling natural killer cell and complement activity shapes susceptibility to and recovery from viral infections, using the frequent virus-exposure measurements of the TEDDY cohort.
- Determine whether combinations of NK cell and complement gene variants, together with infection episodes, predict onset of persistent islet autoimmunity or progression to type 1 diabetes across the TEDDY and DAISY cohorts.
More about the research
Enteroviruses, a common family of viruses, are leading suspects as a trigger. Studies that follow at-risk children have given inconsistent results, and this project proposes that differences in each child's immune genes help explain why.
Why it matters
Learning which inherited immune differences make children prone to persistent viral infections that lead to islet autoimmunity or type 1 diabetes may point to mechanisms that drug developers could target. The grant also notes the findings will help shape how ongoing vaccine and antiviral trials aimed at preventing or delaying type 1 diabetes in high-risk children are designed.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kendra Vehik
University of South Florida, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify early-life plasma microRNA signatures that predict future type 1 diabetes, using longitudinal blood samples from the TEDDY cohort of genetically at-risk children.
Wayne Yokoyama
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify the effector mechanisms by which NK cells constrain immune checkpoint therapy in mouse tumor models, using NK cell depletion, NK-deficient mice and transfer of NK cells into tumors.
Daniel Ram
University of Central Florida, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Develop a gold nanoparticle platform that displays chosen peptides on HLA-E, a non-classical MHC class I molecule, to replace stressed cell lines as a reproducible and scalable peptide-presentation method.
The school
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus: 41 labs on PI Pages, $766M a year on research, 205 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus
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