JDRF MISSION AND OVERARCHING RESEARCH STRATEGY

Since its founding more than 40 years ago by parents of children affected by type 1 diabetes, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has been committed to finding a cure for all those individuals living with the disease (1). Today, JDRF acknowledges that this commitment will not likely be fulfilled in the near term. Although our ultimate goal—curing type 1 diabetes—remains unchanged, we are equally committed to better treating and preventing the disease. These goals aim to ensure that both children and adults living with type 1 diabetes remain healthy so that they can fully benefit from a cure when it becomes available. JDRF focuses on supporting the development and delivery of new therapies and devices that will ease the daily burden and challenges of managing type 1 diabetes and on the prevention of diabetes complications. Additionally, to protect future generations from developing type 1 diabetes, JDRF is supporting approaches to prevent the disease. Thus, JDRF is striving to cure, treat, and prevent type 1 diabetes.

To this end, JDRF-led research is addressing and will continue to address type 1 diabetes at every life stage. Our goals now encompass stopping or slowing the progression of type 1 diabetes in individuals who are newly diagnosed, reversing it in those who have lived with the disease for years, preventing the disease in people at risk today and in future generations, and improving type 1 diabetes treatment by providing better tools to achieve optimal glucose control for people at all stages of the disease.

The field of type 1 diabetes research has progressed impressively over the past 4 decades, in part because of JDRF funding. Although historically we have been identified as a funding organization focused exclusively on exploratory and basic research in academia, over the last 5 years our role has broadened …