EDENT1FI

Some 9 million people worldwide have type 1 diabetes (T1D), in which the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that make the hormone insulin. Insulin controls our blood sugar levels, and people with T1D have to closely monitor their blood sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin to keep their condition under control.

Today, many people are only diagnosed when the disease has already caused significant damage to the insulin-producing cells. Research efforts to identify people with T1D earlier on in the disease have so far focused mainly on people with a family member with the disease. However, 90% of those diagnosed have no family history of T1D and so are not picked up by these efforts.

The aim of EDENT1FI is to change that by setting up a pan-European open platform to screen 200 000 children and adolescents for T1D. The project will assess the psychosocial, medical and economic impacts of screening for T1D in different health systems and populations. The team will also refine the biomarkers used to determine a person’s risk of developing T1D, how advanced the disease is, and how the disease should be monitored in different patients. Another part of the project will focus on designing clinical trials of novel treatments that could stop the disease in its tracks.

Ultimately, EDENT1FI hopes to pioneer a new approach to T1D diagnosis and care, with a much stronger focus on early detection and prevention of the disease. In the long term, learnings from the project could also be applied to other childhood diseases.