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In part 1 of this Exclusive Interview, Raghu Mirmira talks with Diabetes in Control Publisher Steve Freed about the need to look at other aspects of diabetes beyond autoimmunity.
Raghu G. Mirmira, PhD, MD is the director of pediatric research at Indiana University.
Transcript of this video segment:
Freed: This is Steve Freed and we’re here at the 78th Scientific Sessions from the American Diabetes Association. And we have a special guest here, who’s presenting, and it’s Raghu Mirmira.
Mirmira: That’s right.
Freed: Did I get that right?
Mirmira: Yes, you did.
Freed: Okay. First try, that’s very cool. But anyways, maybe you can start off with telling us a little bit about yourself.
Mirmira: I’m the Director of the Diabetes Center at Indiana University and I am also a physician and a researcher. And I lead a lab that studies both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, very basic aspects of how the disease develops and then potential treatments that we first conduct in animal models. And then we also have a group within my center that does clinical studies. I was trained as an endocrinologist and have been doing diabetes research for about 30 years now.
Freed: And what’s the title of your presentation?
Mirmira: So, the title of my presentation tomorrow, Monday, is Type 1 Diabetes is More Than Just an Autoimmune Disease.
Freed: And maybe you can kind of give us a quick over view of that. (This won’t go out before your presentation.)
Mirmira: Sure, sure. Well, what I’m doing is participating in a what is maybe sort of lightheartedly called a debate against one of my colleagues who takes a stronger position that type 1 diabetes is really just an autoimmune disease. And my perspective is, “Well, that’s part of the story, and that there’s more to type 1 diabetes than just autoimmunity.” And I think that that’s reflected and the fact that a lot of trials for type 1 diabetes that have targeted the immune system have had really only modest success. Some drugs work modestly and other drugs don’t work at all, raising the possibility that maybe we’re missing a part of the disease that we aren’t really targeting with our drugs. And so, my presentation tomorrow will focus on the evidence that would suggest that we should be really looking at other aspects in addition to autoimmunity.