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Baltimore Biotech Gains in Diabetes Fight

Published:
1-July-2005

Daily Record

BALTIMORE, February 8 -- Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found a way to prevent rats from developing Type 1 diabetes by blocking a protein that regulates the intestine.

The study - the results of which are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - is good news for Alba Therapeutics Corp.

The Baltimore-based startup founded by a former Eli Lilly & Co. executive recently acquired the rights to patents based on the protein, called zonulin, which researchers believe could be used to prevent and treat the disease that affects more than 1 million people in the United States.

We are extremely excited, it is a new paradigm, said Blake M. Paterson, Alba's co-founder and chief executive officer. We are actually stopping the process of disease rather than simply stopping the symptoms.

About half of the people with diabetes have increased levels of zonulin, a protein that regulates the permeability of the intestine by opening and closing specialized
structures that act like gates between cells, said Alessio Fasano, the University of Maryland researcher who discovered the protein.

As a last line of defense against external toxins and other bacterial and viral substances, zonulin - when functioning normally - will cause the opening and closing of the gates between cells, allowing water to enter and flush out the intestine.

With increased levels of zonulin, however, the gate gets stuck open and stays open for too long, said Fasano, allowing foreign substances to enter. The contact causes the body to produce antibodies that can ultimately attack and destroy insulin-producing pancreatic cells among people genetically predisposed to develop Type 1 diabetes.

During the study, Fasano treated rats with a zonulin inhibitor.

The blocker prevented the development of diabetes in the majority of animals tested - only 27 percent of those given the inhibitor developed diabetes.

Paterson said he plans to submit an application to the federal Food and Drug Administration to conduct human tests within one year.

The company has already submitted information to the FDA about studies it and University of Maryland researchers have conducted looking at its effectiveness in preventing celiac disease, an incurable digestive disorder triggered by the protein gluten.