"Type 1 diabetes is particularly tragic because it usually starts in childhood and its effects worsen with time. It can lead to organ damage, blindness and other terrible side effects.  That's why I focus so heavily on this disease.  I'm trained as a physician and I saw what it can do." - Matthias von Herrath, M.D.

Dr. von Herrath is a full Member in the Division of Developmental Immunology. Dr. von Herrath's research focuses on strategies to prevent type 1 diabetes through the induction of regulatory T cells.

Dr. von Herrath wrote his thesis in the field of Biochemistry and then received his M.D. in Medicine from the Freiburg Medical School in Freiburg, Germany in 1988. He did his residency work at the Freiburg Medical Center in the Internal Medicine/Immunology department and at the Diakonic Hospital's Intensive Care Unit in Freiburg. For his postdoctoral work, Dr. von Herrath went to The Scripps Research Institute and worked in its Neuropharmacology and Immunology departments.

Dr. von Herrath is an editor and reviewer for numerous publications as well as being a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a Council Member for the International Diabetes Society. In addition, he is an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the recipient of the 2006 Grotzky Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International and the 2007-2012 Scholar Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

Matthias von Herrath, M.D., and his team study why the immune system sometimes attacks the body's own cells. They focus on type 1 diabetes, a disease caused by the immune system attacking the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, and on diseases caused by viral infections. Their goal is to develop and evaluate new treatments and therapies for these conditions, in particular immune-based interventions.

The laboratory has found that stimulating the immune system with beta cell proteins via DNA vaccines results in a beneficial, or regulatory, immune response that can prevent type 1 diabetes. The DNA vaccines are currently being developed for the clinic in collaboration with BayHill therapeutics.

In addition, Dr. von Herrath's team is studying how introducing immune response modifiers, such as small molecules named "cytokines" or certain antibodies, get the immune system back on track, stopping it from attacking the body's own cells. His laboratory is collaborating with a major diabetes consortium in the United States and Australia, supported in part by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the Medical Research Council in Australia, on developing this strategy. This approach has proved effective in animals in an advanced stage of type 1 diabetes, and the hope is that this will translate to human patients.

Viral infections and the diseases they cause can be modulated through similar pathways. In parallel to the approach followed by the laboratory for type 1 diabetes, the focus is on developing treatments that will be effective after the infection has occurred.

To read an important press release on some of Dr. von Herrath's latest diabetes findings, please visit our "In the News" section.

SOCS-1 protects from virally-induced CD8 T cell mediated type 1 diabetes. J Autoimmune 2006

Exacerbated pathology of viral encephalitis in mice with central nervous system-specific autoantibodies.Am J Pathol 2007

Anti-CD3 and nasal proinsulin combination therapy enhances remission from recent-onset autoimmune diabetes by inducing Tregs.J Clin Invest 2006

Minimal Impact of a De Novo-Expressed β-Cell Autoantigen on Spontaneous Diabetes Development in NOD Mice.Diabetes 2007

Resolution of a chronic viral infection after interleukin-10 receptor blockade.J Exp Med 2006

Tolerance tag team. Nature Med 2004

CD8αα-mediated survival and differentiation of CD8 memory T cell precursors. Science 2004

Introducing baselines for therapeutic use of regulatory T cells and cytokines in autoimmunity. Trends in Immunology 2003

T-bet controls autoaggressive CD8 lymphocyte responses in type 1 diabetes. Journal of Experimental Medicine 2004

Induction, acceleration or prevention of autoimmunity by molecular mimicry. Molecular Immunology 2004

Cure of prediabetic mice by viral infections involves lymphocyte recruitment along an IP-10 gradient. Journal of Clinical Investigation 2004

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