Pepsi Refresh Project Challenge: Supporters can Vote Online or Text Now thru Feb. 5

Mark Sanchez, quarterback for the New York Jets, is helping the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) try to win $100,000 in grants as part of the Pepsi Refresh Project, an online campaign to fund programs that will have a positive impact on people’s lives. 

Voters can go to www.nfl.com/pepsirefresh and vote for Sanchez, or text ‘MARK’ to PEPSI (73774).  Voting ends at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2010. If Sanchez outpolls other Pepsi Refresh Project sponsors, the funding will help JDRF establish a nationwide program to educate people about the symptoms of type 1 diabetes – the most severe form of the disease – and get medical care before suffering the life-threatening short-term complications of high blood sugar. Symptoms for type 1 or juvenile diabetes can be mistaken for common illnesses, such as the flu, and if left untreated, even over a very short timeframe, can be deadly.

“I want to help establish a much needed, nationwide educational program with JDRF to ensure that the warning signs of type 1 diabetes will become household knowledge for medical personnel, parents, teachers, and friends,” said Sanchez.  “Then, a quick and accurate diagnosis can be made and proper treatment given before it results in a life threatening situation”.

In addition to Sanchez, quarterback Drew Brees and linebacker Demarcus Ware are also participating in the Pepsi Refresh Project challenge.

“We re honored to have Mark Sanchez in the vanguard of our efforts to help save lives and eventually find a cure. Mark is an outstanding example of leadership on and off the field, bringing attention to a problem that can have an enormous impact on the 15,000 children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes annually – that’s 40 children a day,” said Alan J. Lewis, Ph.D., the President and CEO of JDRF.  “All forms of diabetes are clearly on the rise, but the sad fact is that type 1 diabetes is far and away the most prevalent form of the disease affecting children, and so we are also grateful to the Pepsi Refresh Project Challenge for investing in a program that will positively impact so many lives.”

I wanted to let you know about some exciting developments in JDRF's research.  If successful, they will be among the most significant advances in the treatment of type 1 diabetes!
 
These partnerships will lead to a huge improvement in keeping people with type 1 diabetes healthy and lower their risk of complications.

Artificial Pancreas Project
JDRF is partnering with Animas, a Johnson & Johnson company that is a major manufacturer of insulin delivery systems, to develop a first-generation artificial pancreas system to control diabetes.
 
If successful, this would be the first step toward developing a fully automated artificial pancreas, which would be among the most significant advances in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
 
This first-generation system will combine a blood glucose monitor, an insulin pump, and sophisticated computer software that can judge whether blood glucose levels are going above or below a targeted range and react accordingly.
 
This will be the first automated system to manage diabetes, delivering insulin if it senses blood glucose moving too high or stopping insulin delivery if it detects blood sugar is going too low. 
 
We believe it will help many more people with diabetes achieve target A1c's of 7% or lower than currently do so today. Most important, we believe it will do that with far fewer low blood sugar problems.

Insulin Delivery
JDRF and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) launched an innovative program aimed at improving the treatment of type 1 diabetes by developing novel insulin delivery products to enhance the use of insulin pumps. 
 
Through the program, JDRF will support BD's research and development of new products that deliver insulin from a pump to a patient in either an infusion set or patch-pump configuration.  Research indicates that there are significant opportunities to enhance pump therapy by improving convenience as well as minimizing pain, kinking, occlusions and site infections. An additional goal of the program is improving the speed at which insulin works. 
 
These enhancements are intended to improve how people with diabetes control their insulin therapy and have a positive impact on their overall level of glycemic control. And better control means better health outcomes for people with diabetes.
 
Constantly improving the technological tools to dispense insulin will lead to greater adoption of these methods and healthier lives.  That's why we view this collaboration with BD as vital to our goal to provide a bridge to the cure for type 1 diabetes.
 
The JDRF will invest $4.3 million in milestone-based financial support over the next few years for these projects.

Autoimmunity
Fast Forward, LLC, the commercial drug development arm of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the JDRF announced a collaborative partnership with Axxam SpA - a leading company in conducting early-stage discovery research programs for the life science industry, to develop new treatments for two automimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes. 
 
Under the terms of the agreement, Axxam will screen its extensive chemical library to identify compounds that can target specific ion channels in the immune system. Ion channels are tiny pores on the surface of immune cells that control the influx of charged particles and allow the cells to become activated to perform their natural surveillance and protection functions. 
 
Recent studies have found that immune cells in MS and type 1 diabetes contain high levels of a specific ion channel, Kv1.3, and that the hyperactivity of this channel contributes to the dysfunction of the immune system in MS and type 1 diabetes.  If the initial research is successful, Axxam will have identified compounds that modulate Kv1.3 ion channel activities, and these will be further developed by the company as potential therapies for MS and type 1 diabetes.
 
The agreement with Axxam is the first of its kind between cross-disciplinary patient advocacy organizations and represents a new frontier in which groups such as JDRF and Fast Forward ally to lessen the risk of drug discovery and accelerate the development of new therapies that can impact multi-disorders.

JDRF recently announced a partnership with Johnson & Johnson to speed the development of drug targets and pathways to promote the survival and function of insulin-producing cells in people who have diabetes. The program will look to fund research at academic centers around the world that could eventually lead to novel drug targets and industry collaborations for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. 
 
The joint program will solicit grant proposals from academia and medical research foundations for one- or two-year research projects. The research will focus on agents and compounds that safely promote survival and function of beta cells - the cells within the pancreas that produce insulin, and that are lost in the immune attack that causes type 1 diabetes. Preserving or maintaining beta cell mass and activity in people with type 1 diabetes can reduce insulin requirements, make controlling the disease easier and more effective, and lower the risk of both short and long-term complications of the disease.
 
"This program will clearly help accelerate the translation of basic research into therapies useful in the treatment of diabetes," said Alan J. Lewis, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of JDRF. "By creating this novel incubator program to support early stage research with a company known for first-class research and significant experience in the commercialization of products, we believe we can increase the number of viable drug targets identified and fundamentally change the pace of diabetes research."
 
The program aims to contribute to medical research funding in the discovery of better treatments for diabetes, facilitating cooperation between the pharmaceutical industry and universities with the potential to lead to drug targets and products.