Helmsley Charitable Trust – Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Program

Funding to support studies that aim to evaluate or modulate the function of innate immune cells and pathways in T1D, with an emphasis on human disease during relatively early stages of disease.

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust is a global philanthropic organisation dedicated to improving lives today and building healthier, more resilient communities for the future. The Trust partners with people and organisations to invest in new ideas or research across six programme areas: Crohn’s Disease, Israel, Rural Healthcare, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Vulnerable Children in Sub-Saharan Africa, and New York City.

The Trust’s Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) programme has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) titled ‘Understanding and Targeting Innate Immunity in Type 1 Diabetes Pathogenesis’ for projects evaluating the role of innate immune cells in T1D.  The goal is to support the discovery and development of new therapies to prevent or delay the disease, as well as to identify and validate biomarkers for predicting its onset and progression.

Of particular interest are research proposals that include:

• Analysing the type and function of innate cells (eg macrophages, dendritic cells, natural killer cells) present in the pancreas and their interactions with other cells, tissue-resident or otherwise.
• Investigating mechanisms of T1D pathogenesis that involves innate immunity.
• Identifying or validating biomarkers of disease progression or response to treatment based on innate immune cells.
• Identifying or validating therapeutic innate immune cell targets.
• Developing or validating preclinical or clinical therapies to prevent or delay T1D that target or use innate immune cell pathways.

Proposed activities can include, but are not limited to:

• Generation or testing of hypotheses using human samples.
• Profiling or functional analysis of innate immune cells in pancreas samples and pancreas slices.
• Analysis of pre-existing relevant data sets, either publicly available or generated by the applicant.
• Preclinical or clinical activities that advance or build evidence for a specific therapeutic concept based on existing knowledge of the role of innate immunity in T1D.