Explore our research
As the leading global type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization, we help make everyday life with T1D better.
Curing T1D. Improving lives.
As the leading type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization, Breakthrough T1D is executing an ambitious plan toward cures, created by leading scientists and our global board of directors, most of whom have a direct T1D connection.
Our research has two core objectives:
- Cure T1D by restoring the body’s ability to make insulin and stopping T1D before it occurs or providing insulin independence through replacement with insulin-producing cells
- Improve lives by keeping people with T1D as healthy as possible until cures are found by advancing new T1D resources, technologies, and therapies.
Breakthrough T1D has had a hand in the development of nearly every T1D advancement over the past 50 years. We will continue to fund the best research until this disease is a thing of the past.
Breakthrough T1D is focused on the entire T1D continuum, from those who don’t have T1D to those that have had it for decades.”
Curing T1D
We don’t have cures that restore insulin independence for people with T1D yet, but we know what must be done to make them a reality. To find cures for T1D, we need to:
- Restore or replace insulin production
- Turn off the autoimmune attack responsible for destroying the beta cells
To achieve this, Breakthrough T1D’s Cures portfolio is focused on three areas: screening, disease-modifying therapies, and cell therapies
Cures
Develop a global universal T1D early detection strategy to identify high-risk individuals, reduce DKA at diagnosis, and speed up the development of disease-modifying therapies.
Powering the research and development of new therapies that can slow, halt, or reverse the course of T1D.
Investing in research and clinical trials to develop life-changing therapies that insert healthy insulin-producing cells into people with T1D with minimal or no immunosuppression
Improving lives
People with T1D must have tools, therapies, and interventions to keep them healthy so that as cures come to fruition, they are healthy enough to take advantage of them. To achieve this, Breakthrough T1D’s improving lives portfolio is focused on two areas: drugs and devices for glucose control and improving quality of life; complications and behavioral health
How we’re improving lives
People with T1D must have tools, therapies, and interventions to keep them healthy so that as cures come to fruition, they are healthy enough to take advantage of them.
Making T1D easier to manage with improved tech, insulins, and other drugs—all with reduced disease management burden.
Discovering therapies that intervene in heart, eye, and kidney disease and reducing the mental burden of T1D through research and clinical trials.
My loved ones with T1D have a quality of life and life expectancy unimaginable a generation ago. Breakthrough T1D has the research strategy and tools that will allow my loved ones to walk away from this disease, and I believe the next generation of my family will never know the burden of T1D.”
Breakthrough T1D research
Curious about how Breakthrough T1D is accelerating breakthroughs?
Breakthrough T1D doesn’t have laboratories. We work with the top minds all over the world to solve T1D’s biggest challenges, together.
Every Breakthrough T1D-funded grant, now or in the past, has moved us closer to a world without T1D.
See for yourself with our tool that allows you to look up every grant in the Breakthrough T1D database.
Get funding
Breakthrough T1D has funded the top minds in T1D research. Find opportunities for funding.
We are powering research to cure, prevent, and better treat type 1 diabetes and its complications. This is our strategy to do it.
We are proud of our funded research. Every grant brings us closer to our mission. See for yourself in our funded research database.
Breakthrough T1D offers a wide variety of grants and fellowships to qualified researchers. All qualified scientists are encouraged to apply
Clinical trials: critical to advancing research
Clinical trials advance T1D care so people with T1D can live fuller, healthier lives. Learn more about how you can further research and drive us toward a future without T1D.
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