Fact Sheets: Research Funding Facts
JDRF's mission is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. JDRF is also committed to developing new and better treatments that improve the lives of people with type 1 diabetes in the near term and keep them healthy while we advance toward a cure.
- Since its founding in 1970 by parents of children with type 1 diabetes, JDRF has funded more than $1.4 billion in research. In FY2009 alone, JDRF funded nearly $101 million, more than $42 million of which represented new scientific projects.
- More than 80 percent of JDRF's expenditures directly support research and research-related education.
- In FY2009, JDRF funded research projects in 22 countries, including more than 40 human clinical trials.
FY2009 JDRF Research Funding
| Immune Therapies: | $33 million
|
| Beta Cell Therapies: | $39.8 million
|
| Glucose Control: | $5.9 million
|
| Complications Therapies: | $22.1 million |
| Total: | $100.8 million
|
JDRF's Research Goals
JDRF is committed to aggressively following the most promising paths to cure, better treat, and prevent type 1 diabetes. We are targeting our resources on science that seeks to:
- Arrest the immune attack on the insulin-producing beta cells
- Restore or replace beta cell function
- Better control blood sugar levels
- Protect people from - or reverse - complications
Therapeutic Areas
JDRF targets its research funding in four "Therapeutic Areas:"
Immune Therapies
This area focuses on ways to stop the immune system attack on the body's insulin-producing beta cells that causes type 1 diabetes. Within this area, JDRF is prioritizing antigen-specific therapies that would reverse the immune attack in type 1 diabetes without suppressing the entire immune system.
Beta Cell Therapies
This area aims to find ways to restore the body's ability to make insulin through the:
- Regeneration of insulin-producing beta cells (i.e. triggering the body to re-grow beta cells) and
- Replacement of the beta cells lost to diabetes
JDRF is prioritizing regeneration because of its potential to restore beta cell function in the largest number of people living with type 1 diabetes.
Glucose ControlThis area seeks to identify ways to dramatically improve blood glucose control while avoiding dangerous highs and lows in people at all stages of type 1 diabetes. JDRF is prioritizing the development of a closed loop artificial pancreas, a device combining glucose monitors and insulin pumps, to enable people to achieve tight blood sugar control and reduce their risk of complications. JDRF is also prioritizing the development of novel insulins that are glucose-responsive, faster-acting, easier to use, and more effective.
Complications TherapiesThis area focuses on ways to free people from the devastating long-term complications that can accompany diabetes, including diseases of the eyes, nerves, and kidneys. JDRF is prioritizing research in complications protection, or new approaches to assess risk and block complications from developing and progressing.
For more information, visit the JDRF Web site at
http://www.jdrf.org/, or call 800-533-CURE.
JANUARY 2010
