(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Researchers make a big step toward a potential cure for type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes. The team at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI) found a combination therapy reversed the disease in the majority of lab mice tested.

The study combined two therapies already being tested individually in human clinical trials -- anti-CD3 antibody and proinsulin peptide. Together, they were more effective, lasted longer, and had fewer side effects in mice than either treatment alone has shown in humans.

"The finding of increased efficacy of reversal of recent-onset type 1 diabetes in animals that received a combination of systemic anti-CD3 antibody and intranasal proinsulin peptide compared to therapy with the antibody alone is an exciting and important finding," says Richard A. Insel, M.D., Executive Vice President for Research at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The combination therapy teaches the immune system to tolerate, rather than attack, the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas. Researchers were able to stop the immune system's destruction of beta cells in mice. The diabetes never recurred in the lifespan of the animals.

This is the first study to look at a combination therapy using a vaccine strategy for type 1 diabetes. The treatment is especially attractive because if it's successful in humans, it could replace insulin-injection treatments completely, which often cannot prevent the long-term complications of diabetes, including kidney failure, blindness and amputations.

Researchers hope to begin testing the combination therapy in humans later this year. Ideal candidates are people recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes or those who are already being treated for pre-diabetes.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Investigation, published online April 20, 2006