Dr. Peter Achenbach , MD Clinical Scientist and Physician Diabetes Research Institute Koelner Platz 1 80804 Munich Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 89 3068 5578 Fax: +49 (0) 89 3068 7509 E-mail: Peter.Achenbach@lrz.uni-muenchen.de 1990-1997: Study of Human Medicine, University of Leipzig , Germany 1998: German Diabetes Research Institute, Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, Germany 1994-1998: Research group of Prof. Werner Scherbaum, Thesis on islet autoantibodies 1998-2001: Postdoctoral Fellow of Prof. John Hutton , Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, UCHSC, Denver , USA since 2001: Diabetes Research Institute Munich , Germany Research group of Prof. Anette Ziegler Research interests: My long-term research goals are to contribute to a better understanding of the etiology and pathogenic mechanisms of type 1 diabetes (T1DM), and to ultimately find effective therapies that can prevent and cure this disease. I am currently establishing my own independent scientific basis through an Early Career Patient-oriented Diabetes Research award of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Over the past years I have focused my research on immunology of T1DM, with a special emphasis on characterizing the humoral islet autoimmunity and predicting the disease. Specifically, I have asked how autoantibody responses can best be applied to stratify, stage and monitor progression to T1DM. The underlying hypothesis of my studies is that humoral autoimmunity aligns itself to specific disease characteristics the closer it is to diabetes onset. Being part of the research team of Anette Ziegler at the Diabetes Research Institute in Munich has provided me with unique opportunities to test this hypothesis in prestigious cohorts of prospectively followed individuals at T1DM risk (e.g. BABYDIAB and Munich family studies) and has allowed close collaborations with the leading experts in the field (e.g. Ezio Bonifacio and Polly Bingley). Together we have proposed novel prediction strategies in relatives of patient with T1DM based on autoantibody characteristics that could be translated into clinical application and used for screening purposes, and may become valuable diagnostic tools, if an effective form of intervention to prevent T1DM is identified. To achieve the latter I am part of the Pre-POINT (Primary Oral/intranasal Insulin Trial) Study Group, which will conduct the first antigen-specific intervention trial in autoantibody-negative children at genetically high risk for T1DM. Amongst future tasks, identifying islet autoantibody profiles for monitoring immune efficacy of intervention treatments and transferring findings in relatives to people without a family history of T1DM will be key issues. Assuming that efficacious preventive therapies will be found, it will be important to also treat individuals from the general population in order to decrease the overall incidence of T1DM. I am a member of the Immunology of Diabetes Society since 2002 and the IDS Autoantibody Committee since 2005. I believe that t he international workshops organized by the Diabetes Autoantibody Standardization Program (DASP) have been valuable tools to evaluate and improve assays for measuring diabetes-related autoantibodies, to help laboratories to achieve and/or maintain a high-quality assay performance, and to provide a platform for rapid evaluation of novel autoantibody markers. Running these workshops should therefore remain a hallmark component of the IDS activities, and I will further this as Chair of the Autoantibody Committee.