Invited Speaker
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disorder in which immune cells target the insulin-producing β cells of the pancreas, leading to hyperglycaemia. CD28 co-stimulation blockade has been tested as a therapeutic for T1D with mixed clinical results. A better understanding of the T cell populations present at the site of the autoimmune attack, and the extent to which these populations are sensitive to co-stimulation blockade or other interventions, would be helpful in designing approaches to inhibit T1D development.
Using the DO11 x RIP-mOVA mouse model, I employed 33-color spectral flow cytometry to characterize these populations. Because traditional manual gating is insufficient for analysing such complex datasets, I developed an optimized bioinformatics pipeline. In this talk, I will demonstrate how this workflow enables the identification and validation of novel pancreatic-infiltrating T cell populations.