“Our findings suggest potential strategies for using normal gut bacteria to block progression of insulin-dependent diabetes in kids who have high genetic risk,” says Jayne Danska, Ph.D., senior scientist in genetics and genome biology at The Hospital for Sick Children and professor of immunology and medical biophysics at the University of Toronto.

A person’s intestines—or “gut”—are home to a community of bacteria that are essential to metabolism and the normal development and function of the immune system. Early in life these bacteria, called gut microbes, help the body to establish immunoregulation. This is the process by which the immune system controls and balances all of its components and their interactions to defend against sickness and disease. But for reasons that are not known, immunoregulation development can go haywire and lead to the onset of an autoimmune disease. Breakthrough T1D is funding research to investigate whether changes in gut microbes during early development lead to less-robust immunoregulation and the development of type 1 diabetes (T1D).

For more information about this new scientific finding and more Breakthrough T1D research investments, you may read the rest of this article in Breakthrough T1D’s recent publication of Countdown.