Cell Reports<\/a> in September. Their findings challenged the notion that Type 1 diabetes originates inside pancreatic islets, instead suggesting they are positioned between the islets and blood vessels.<\/p>\nThe $3.2 million grant through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases enables further research into VAFs. Teyton said he\u2019s using multiple overlapping grants to advance his lab\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially at Scripps, you\u2019re always overlapping the work you do or the funding you get,\u201d Teyton said.<\/p>\n
Teyton, a Scripps scientist of nearly four decades who has worked with the National Institutes of Health and NIDDK for 30 years, estimated he\u2019s received $12 million in grant funding during his career.<\/p>\n
For the first stretch of his career, he focused on subject matter that was in high demand, from structural studies of molecules linked to diabetes to evaluating the structure of T-cell receptors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a lot of work very focused on getting structures, which are extremely difficult to get. But we got them, so we got a lot of publicity for it,\u201d Teyton said. \u201cBut that still doesn\u2019t explain the initiation of disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are very, very few autoimmune diseases that are really understood mechanistically \u2014 what triggers the disease, or if we know the trigger, then how can we treat diseases?\u201d<\/p>\n
Teyton\u2019s studies are in collaboration with Joseph Jardine, an assistant professor in Scripps\u2019 Department of Immunology and Microbiology, where Teyton also works. The two met years ago as Teyton recruited Jardine to Scripps Research. Now his involvement makes their work a multi-generational effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always liked the work he does, his willingness to do difficult things,\u201d Teyton said of Jardine. \u201cSo I brought him into the Type 1 diabetes project because he can do things that are serving the project we do. And then I thought it was a good idea to have a young investigator here by an old guy like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moving forward, Teyton and his team are slated to do an analysis of all antigen-presenting cells for pre-diabetic pancreatic islets and normal ones and track how the cell populations change over time. \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a four-year, $3.2 million grant, Dr. Luc Teyton of Scripps Research in La Jolla is further equipped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,930,5184,6804,6953,74,84,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-44647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-la-jolla","10":"tag-la-jolla-light","11":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","12":"tag-la-jolla-shores","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Insulin-producing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/LJL-L-DIABETES-RESEARCH-GRANT-02.jpg\")
Insulin-producing cells (green) interact with blood vessels and membranes (yellow) to disperse the hormone throughout the body. In September, Scripps Research scientists identified vascular-associated fibroblastic cells (red), which regulate the immune system to prevent autoimmune attacks on cells. (Scripps Research)<\/p>\n