Jewell, Bromberg Receive Award from Breakthrough T1D to Develop and Test a New Treatment for Type 1 Diabetes

University of Maryland researchers Christopher Jewell and Jonathan Bromberg received funding from Breakthrough T1D, the leading global type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy organization, to further develop and test a new immunotherapy for T1D.

The funding builds on a 10-year collaboration on autoimmune disease research between Jewell, professor of translational engineering in the Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Bromberg, vice chair for research and professor, Department of Surgery and Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The award is for a project titled “Defining the target product profile of intra-lymph node depots as a durable antigen-specific immunotherapy for T1D.”

“Breakthrough T1D is focused on accelerating research that can slow, halt, or reverse type 1 diabetes,” said Breakthrough T1D Scientist Greg Golden. “We’re excited to support Dr. Jewell’s team and look forward to working with them on this critical research, which represents an important next step in testing a cutting-edge approach to address the immune response that destroys insulin-producing cells in people living with type 1 diabetes.”

An estimated 2.1 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. T1D is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. For people living with the disease, the pancreas produces little to no insulin, causing glucose to accumulate in the blood rather than enter cells for energy. T1D requires lifelong insulin treatment and can create serious co-morbidities. Currently, there is only one therapy approved for use in early stage T1D to delay progression of the disease, and more therapies are needed to dampen the immune attack that occurs in early stage T1D.

“We are working to stop T1D autoimmunity and the immune destruction of insulin-producing cells without impacting normal healthy immune responses,” said Jewell, Robert E. Fischell Institute Professor for Translational Engineering, MPower Professor, Fischell Institute Fellow, University of Maryland, and research biologist, United States Department of Veterans Affairs. “Educating the immune system to stop attacking the body’s own insulin-producing cells would be a therapeutic option to cure T1D. Using preclinical models of T1D, our research has shown that reprogramming lymph node tissues for tolerance can selectively stop the disease.”

This new concept of reprogramming the function of lymph nodes results in “educating” incoming immune cells to adopt specific regulatory functions that selectively control the cells attacking the pancreas.

To do this, Jewell’s team introduces polymer particles into the lymph nodes, where they slowly release modulatory cues to promote regulatory immune cells that mature and migrate to the pancreas to control self-reactive cells.

“In this new project we will interrogate some of the mechanisms behind this efficacy and the breadth of tolerance generated,” Jewell explained. “We will also use this lymph node-engineering technology to test if we can stop and reverse disease in pre-clinical models that mimic three increasingly difficult clinical settings.” Those settings include new onset, early disease, and later disease stages.

Jewell’s team has recently published three papers related to this work, including: “Engineering the lymph node environment promotes antigen-specific efficacy in type 1 diabetes and islet transplantation,” in Nature Communication, in 2023; “Local control of T cell fate in lymph nodes safely and durably reverses myelin-driven autoimmunity,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, in November, 2025; and “Defined distribution and features of lymph node therapies enable recruitment and manipulation of antigen-specific T cell response,” in Molecular Therapy, in February, 2026.

Nodal Therapeutics Inc., a start-up company formed by Jewell and Bromberg is working to translate these technologies into therapies to stop autoimmune disease.

Breakthrough T1D, formerly JDRF, is dedicated to accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent, and treat Type 1 diabetes and its complications. The organization has supported Jewell’s research for over a decade.

Published April 1, 2026