Juvenile diabetes is a disease that attacks one in three hundred youths before the age of twenty. These are very high numbers and so Dr. L. Field of the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network at the University of Calgary is trying to get to the root of the problem.
Genes specify the kinds of proteins that are made by cells.
By studying DNA, Dr. Field has found two new genes that, if present, play an important role in the development of this disease. Diabetes is a disease that is ultimately caused by a malfunction of the machinery needed to transport the most important fuel, glucose, across your cell membranes. Glucose is needed to supply your body with the energy required to run a marathon or just to sit and think. This deficiency in glucose uptake leaves a large excess of glucose in the blood that is eventually excreted via the urine. In order to transport glucose across the cell membrane, a specific protein called insulin is needed.