Miscellaneous
Episode 8 is a bit more academic of nature than you are used to from me. In addition, it's my first episode in English since my guest is oversees. I am delighted to speak to professor Roep from The City of Hope (COH) Medical Center in California. He is the founding chair of the department Diabetes immunology of the City of Hope. He serves as project director of the Wanek family project, which is an ambitious initiative to find a cure for Diabetes type 1. During medical school in Amsterdam, professor Roep was surprised by the lack of focus on the cause of Diabetes type 1. This lead to his thrive to become a medical scientist in the field of Type 1 Diabetes. Despite his promising developments in the Netherlands at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) Professor Roep decided to go on an adventure in the United States (US). The main reason for this move was the funding opportunity in the US for his research, which empower him in to bring crazy academic ideas into reality. The City of Hope is best known as a cancer treatment center but has a legacy in Type 1 Diabetes too. This combination has lead to the understanding that knowledge about both illnesses complement each other. Professor Roep says that an over ambitious immune system can result in auto immune diseases like Diabetes Type 1 and an inaccurately immune system relates to cancer. In addition, professor Roep states that the defective insulin producing bėta cells within patients are actually in hibernation (a sleep), probably hiding for the immune system. For this reason it is important patient treat themselves - and with that its hibernated beta cells - properly, by securing proper sugar levels and taking vitamin D3. He is clear about the fact that there won' t be ''a one magic bullet therapy’’. Patients have different bodies, immune systems, levels of hibernated bèta cells and many other dissimilarities. For that reason he promotes colleague researchers in their studies to realize a cure for Diabetes Type 1. Because not all patients will reap the benefits of (his) developed therapies.