"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 serves as Director of the Center for Type 1 Diabetes Research in addition to being 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.

Resuscitating adaptive Tregs with combination therapies? Novartis Found Symp. 2008

Taking a closer look at the pancreas. Diabetologia. 2008

Transforming growth factor-beta suppresses the activation of CD8+ T-cells when naive but promotes their survival and function once antigen experienced: a two-faced impact on autoimmunity. Diabetes. 2008

IL-10 and the resolution of infections. J Pathol. 2008

Viral trigger for type 1 diabetes: pros and cons. Diabetes. 2008

First-trimester human fetal pancreas transplantation for type 1 diabetes treatment: an alternative approach for achieving long-term graft survival? Diabetes. 2008

Naive precursor frequencies and MHC binding rather than the degree of epitope diversity shape CD8+ T cell immunodominance. J Immunol. 2008

Novel strategies to eliminate persistent viral infections. Trends Immunol. 2008

Real-time imaging of the pancreas during development of diabetes. Immunol Rev. 2008

Islet antigen specific IL-10+ immune responses but not CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ cells at diagnosis predict glycemic control in type 1 diabetes. Clin Immunol. 2008

Murine antithymocyte globulin therapy alters disease progression in NOD mice by a time-dependent induction of immunoregulation. Diabetes. 2008

Immunosuppression in islet transplantation. J Clin Invest. 2008

Defining optimal immunotherapies for type 1 diabetes. Introduction. Novartis Found Symp. 2008

Towards a curative therapy in type 1 diabetes: remission of autoimmunity, maintenance and augmentation of beta cell mass. Novartis Found Symp. 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View all publications
The link above may include papers by scientists with the same or similar name.