Research

JDRF is the world’s largest nonprofit funder of type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Our focus is on finding a cure; until we do, the advancements we’re making every day improve the lives of those living with the disease until that day comes.

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Closing in on Cures

We don’t yet know where the cures will come from, but we have identified several paths that have the most promise. We invest in these projects at the earliest stages and continue to fund those that deliver results across the therapy development pipeline, ensuring the most innovative ideas and approaches turn into breakthrough treatments. Today, several of those ideas and approaches are in human clinical trials.
Explore our research portfolio below.

Our Strategy: Curing T1D. Improving Lives.

Our research has two core objectives: Cures 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, and Improving Lives by keeping people with T1D as healthy as possible until cures are found by advancing new T1D resources, technologies, and therapies.

JDRF has a plan to achieve our mission and vision of a world without T1D. Guided by our two pillars, Cures and Improving Lives, JDRF has a 5 year plan to bring us closer to Cures for T1D. This plan, created by JDRF scientists and approved by our International Board of Directors, most of whom have a direct T1D connection, focuses JDRF’s resources on the key drivers that will have the biggest impact on achieving our goals.
Learn more about our research strategy here.

Cures

We don’t have cures for 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, JDRF’s Cures portfolio is focused on three areas:
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Screening

Developing a global universal T1D risk screening strategy to identify high-risk individuals, reduce DKA at diagnosis, and speed up the development of disease-modifying therapies by accelerating clinical trials.

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Disease-Modifying Therapies

Powering the research and development of new therapies that can slow, halt, or reverse the course of T1D, curing people across the various stages of the disease.

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Cell Therapies

Investing in research and clinical trials aimed at developing and delivering life-changing therapies that insert healthy, insulin-producing beta cells into people with T1D, with minimal or no immunosuppression, keeping them healthy for longer.

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Improving Lives

People with T1D must have tools, therapies, and interventions to keep them healthy so that when cures come to fruition, they are healthy enough to take advantage of them. To achieve this, JDRF’s Improving Lives portfolio is focused on two areas:

Drugs and Devices for Glucose Control

Making T1D easier to manage with improved technologies, like artificial pancreas systems, improved insulins, and other drugs – all with reduced disease management burden.

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Improving Quality of Life: Complications and Behavioral Health

Discovering therapies that intervene in diabetic eye and kidney disease at earlier stages, preventing them from advancing and reducing the mental burden of T1D through research and clinical trials, developing interventions that help people with T1D do better.

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Investing in the Future

In order to cure T1D and improve lives, the T1D field must continue to attract the top minds. That’s why JDRF will continue to foster a healthy community of T1D researchers by supporting training awards and fellowships, and bridging the gap between endocrinologists, transplant surgeons, psychologists, and immunologists.

Meet our Grantees Here

Want to learn more? Watch JDRF Vice President, Research talk through JDRF’s research portfolio. You can also see him go over the top advances of FY21 here.