Team:Tsinghua

From 2014.igem.org

Revision as of 10:37, 14 October 2014 by Ted hou (Talk | contribs)


Tsinghua iGEM

Introduction

TYPE I DIABETES MELLITUS

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease involving excessively high levels of blood glucose, either due to absence of insulin production (Type I), or decreased insulin production or insulin receptor dysfunction (Type II). Diabetes can be fatal if left untreated. A study estimates 366 million people are affected by diabetes worldwide, and predicts the number to rise to 552 million by the end of 2030[1].

Type I diabetes mellitus (T1DM) account for 5 % – 10 % [3, 4] of diabetes cases. Nonetheless, a cure or prevention for T1DM does not yet exist. Type I diabetes can occur anytime in life, and is most prevalent in children and teenagers aged 8 – 16. The causes for type I diabetes remains unclear, it is, however, most commonly attributed to autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells.

Figure 1. An estimation of type I diabetes global incidence by region. Data shown are cases per 100,000 people. (Adapted from [2])

Currently, the primary treatment for T1DM is insulin therapy, which involves daily injections of insulin and constant monitoring of blood glucose levels as well as food intake. Insulin pumps and continuous blood glucose monitors are increasingly utilized to ameliorate the need for constant care. However, insulin therapy requires regular, if not constant, maintenance, and is by no means considered a cure.

There are attempts at developing a cure for T1DM, either through islet transplantation or stem cell regeneration, which would restore insulin production in T1DM patients. A more novel approach involves gene therapy, aimed at granting somatic cells other than beta cells the ability to produce insulin via artificial gene transfer.

[1] Whiting, David R., et al. "IDF diabetes atlas: global estimates of the prevalence of diabetes for 2011 and 2030." Diabetes research and clinical practice 94.3 (2011): 311-321.
[2] Mark A Atkinson, George S Eisenbarth, Aaron W Michels, Type 1 diabetes, The Lancet, Volume 383, Issue 9911, 4–10 January 2014, Pages 69-82, ISSN 0140-6736, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60591-7.
[3] Type 1 diabetes, American Diabetes Association. http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-1/
[4] Type 1 diabetes, NHS. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Diabetes-type1/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Header 2

Because all the columns are floated, this layout uses a clear:both declaration in the footer rule. This clearing technique forces the .container to understand where the columns end in order to show any borders or background colors you place on the .container. If your design requires you to remove the footer from the .container, you'll need to use a different clearing method. The most reliable will be to add a <br class="clearfloat" /> or <div class="clearfloat"></div> after your final floated column (but before the .container closes). This will have the same clearing effect.

Header2

An image placeholder was used in this layout in the header where you'll likely want to place a logo. It is recommended that you remove the placeholder and replace it with your own linked logo.

Be aware that if you use the Property inspector to navigate to your logo image using the SRC field (instead of removing and replacing the placeholder), you should remove the inline background and display properties. These inline styles are only used to make the logo placeholder show up in browsers for demonstration purposes.

To remove the inline styles, make sure your CSS Styles panel is set to Current. Select the image, and in the Properties pane of the CSS Styles panel, right click and delete the display and background properties. (Of course, you can always go directly into the code and delete the inline styles from the image or placeholder there.)

This footer contains the declaration position:relative; to give Internet Explorer 6 hasLayout for the footer and cause it to clear correctly. If you're not required to support IE6, you may remove it.

Address Content