Despite the potential undesirable consequences of shutting down problematic genes, a better understanding of the genetics of autoimmunity will certainly play a key role in developing future therapies. For example, identifying type 1 diabetes (T1D) risk at birth is certainly within reach, says George S. Eisenbarth, executive director of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes at the University of Colorado. "We can now identify a risk that looks like it's going to exceed 80%." Important high-risk genotypes include variants of genes for human leukocyte antigens (HLA). In particular, these include the HLA-DR and HLA-DQ genes, as well as other major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loci, according to Eisenbarth.
In part, he found this correlation from the Diabetes Autoimmunity Study in the Young (DAISY). For that study, Eisenbarth and his colleagues used umbilical cord blood from 30,000 newborns to genotype the HLA genes, and then tried to connect those to alleles ...
