850 people, 150 kids and teens, and major reports on T1D research!

The sixth annual TypeOneNation Summit was held Saturday, March 5th and hosted the largest attendance to date. New this year, was a pre-summit “Adults with T1D Meet and Greet,” which provided participants the opportunity to connect with others in the community. We also had two other pre-summit sessions, including “Taking T1D to Elementary School” and “Transitioning to College with T1D.”

Derek Rapp, Breakthrough T1D President and CEO, the Summit’s keynote speaker, outlined Breakthrough T1D’s mission and research priorities. Derek spoke enthusiastically about all progress to date. He gave a sobering report about the significant gap in Breakthrough T1D funding which doesn’t allow us to take full advantage of all the exciting research opportunities that are out there.

Dr. Paul Laikind, President & CEO of ViaCyte gave a very exciting update on ViaCyte which is conducting a Phase 1 human clinical trial in patients with type 1 diabetes who have minimal to no insulin-producing beta cell function. “Three months after implantation, the cells are surviving, they are proliferating… the device is vascularized, and they are differentiating,” Laikind said. “We can show markers of insulin production in the cells.”

(Photo) Left to Right: Howard Look, President, CEO & Founder, Tidepool; Stefany Shaheen, Moderator; Bill Parsons, Executive Director, Breakthrough T1D GCP Chapter; Dr. Sanjoy Dutta, Assistant Vice President, Translational Development & International Partnerships, Breakthrough T1D; Gary Scheiner, Owner & Clinical Director, Integrated Diabetes Services LLC; Dr. Paul Laikind, President & CEO, ViaCyte; Cynthia Rice, Senior Vice-President, Advocacy & Policy, Breakthrough T1D

To read more about the day and highlights from the presentations:

Read Stephen Shaul’s diabetes blog, Happy-Medium.net or the overview from Tidepool’s presentation on DiabetesMine.

Diabetes Management & the Family: It’s Not Just A Numbers Game!
Presented by Joe Solowiejczyk, RN MSW CDE Diabetes Nurse Educator & Family Therapist

Breakthrough T1D Advocacy Update: Turning Type One Into Type None
Presented by Cynthia Rice, Breakthrough T1D Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Policy

Strike the Spike: Managing Post-Meal Glucose Levels
Presented by Gary Scheiner, CDE, Owner and Clinical Director, Integrated Diabetes Services LLC

The Youth Program and Teen Track had over 150 kids and teens participate this year!

The teen participants competed in the second annual Breakthrough T1D Project Runway Challenge and the winning design was featured on our Facebook page that day! In a session facilitated by Joe Solowiejczyk, teens were engaged in great conversations about living with T1D. Young adult volunteers also facilitated a discussion about going off to college and the unique challenges having T1D brings.The youth participants had a full day of activities, including playing games with comedian Mike Black, enjoying a puppet show, and creating art projects with a local Girl Scout troop.

 Thank you to all of our speakers, volunteers, staff, and attendees for making the TypeOneNation Summit possible.

We hope to see you in 2017!