Exciting research . . . Spinal Cord Society research director Dr Jim Faed demonstrates a Terumo sterile tube welder, in use in Dunedin Hospital. PHOTO: BRENDA HARWOOD

A Dunedin-based research team, working on a cure for type 1 diabetes, is reaching out for support.

The Spinal Cord Society of New Zealand research team, based at the University of Otago's Centre for Innovation, has been developing methods for using patients' stem cells to ''turn off'' the auto-immune response that causes type 1 diabetes.

Research director Dr Jim Faed said the work built on the research of a

Chinese-American group, which was able to show a way to cure type 1 diabetes using a patient's own stem cells to reset the body's immune system, helping the return of insulin production.

''That work now needs repeating and improving, to speed up the recovery process,'' Dr Faed said.

Type 1 diabetes destroys the body's insulin-producing cells as an auto-immune response to a trigger, such as an infection, in people with an inherited tendency. These people, who number about 25,000 in New Zealand, ''need some help to flick the switch and turn that auto-immune response off'', he said.

''We feel we have the right strategy for that. What we need now is to buy the equipment to progress from just lab-scale work to producing cells that are safe to use in people [in clinical trials].''

The research was ''on the verge of a real breakthrough'' and could be one of the most exciting scientific advances since antibiotics, he said.

If a cure for type 1 diabetes could be established, it could open the way for researchers to look into other auto-immune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, he said.

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Help us `break through': scientists