The immune pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes

Published on April 29, 2021   49 min

A selection of talks on Clinical Practice

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0:00
My name is Susan Wong and I'm professor of diabetes metabolism at Cardiff School of Medicine. I'm also a consultant physician at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Today, I will talk about the immune pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes.
0:19
We will first talk about an introduction to type 1 diabetes. We will look at some new effectors in relation to genetic susceptibility, and will then focus on pathology and immunity. There have been some recent advances in our understanding of how the environment may play a role in the development of type 1 diabetes and finally, I will consider some implications for immune-based therapy.
0:46
On the next slide we will consider: what is type 1 diabetes? This is an insulin-deficient diabetes in which there is autoimmune loss of insulin-producing pancreatic beta-cells. On the left you can see that the pancreas is a deeply-embedded organ in the body, lying behind the stomach, and the majority of the cells here are involved in digestion. However, one to two percent of pancreatic tissue consists of the islets of Langerhans, and on the right you can see that these islets of Langerhans have insulin-producing cells (which are stained here in red) and glucagon producing cells (which are stained in green).
1:27
On the next slide, we consider the worldwide incidence of type 1 diabetes. This is colour coded, and you can see that the highest instance regions for type 1 diabetes are shown in dark red. This includes the Scandinavian countries, parts of the Middle East, the United Kingdom and also Canada.