The treatment, known as TOL-3021, using a DNA fragment and is designed to reduce the antibodies that attack the insulin-producing cells. Type 1 diabetes is caused by this attack, which leaves the patient with no ability to produce insulin on its own.

In the study involving 80 patients were able to maintain the number of insulin producing cells in the 12 week treatment and insulin levels were maintained or increased depending on the dose.

In this experimental treatment has been called "reverse shot" since, in essence, acts as opposed to vaccines, since vaccines activate specific immune system antibodies, while the TOL-3021 inactivates the immune system.

With reverse vaccine, scientists claim disable only the immune system attacks cells in the pancreas that produce insulin and leave the rest intact immune system.

The bad news is that patients who participated in the study, insulin production capacity fell once again stopped injecting the TOL-3021, so the effect of the treatment is not permanent.

The new immunotherapies are designed to control the autoimmunity associated with type 1 diabetes, in order to preserve beta cell function in people at risk of developing the disease, those who have already been diagnosed and those who already have the disease

"It will be necessary to conduct additional clinical trials with this vaccine inverse to explore the effects of longer treatment periods, the duration of the effects and determining the ideal target population," says Dr. Richard Insel, chief investigator JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) research participant TOL-3021.

Photo By Chistin Süß, Jakob Suckale, Michele Solimena [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons