BY LAURAN NEERGAARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The doctor had barely pulled away the needle when a blister appeared on Tracey Berg-Fulton's abdomen: An experimental shot was revving up the 24-year-old's immune system -- part of a bold quest to create a vaccine-like therapy for diabetes.
''If we're right, that is what's going to stop Type 1 diabetes,'' Dr. David Finegold said after administering the last of four shots.
It's a big ``if.''
The research is in its infancy, a first-step experiment to be sure the vaccine approach is safe before researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh test their real target -- kids newly diagnosed with this deadliest form of diabetes.
It's also part of a big shift: Scientists increasingly hope to control Type 1 diabetes by curbing the rogue immune cells that cause it, before patients become completely dependent on daily insulin injections to survive./.../
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