Can a series of DNA vaccine shots halt type-1 diabetes progression?

A new kind of so-called ‘reverse’ vaccine built to dial down the autoimmune reaction that causes type-1 diabetes is showing promise, a study of 80 patients given once-weekly injections of the vaccine for 12 weeks reveals Results of an early-stage clinical trial of the vaccine, just reported in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that the vaccine may be able to slow or, at best, halt the destruction of the insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells that are targeted by an errant immune system. When I interviewed Stanford neuroimmunologist Larry Steinman, MD, for our news release on the trial, he told me: “We’re very excited by these results, which suggest that the immunologist’s dream of shutting down just a single subset of dysfunctional immune cells without wrecking the whole immune system may be attainable… This vaccine is a new concept. It’s shutting off a specific immune response, rather than turning on specific immune responses as conventional...