A gene variant that increases a child's risk of having type 1 diabetes or juvenile diabetes have been identified by researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and McGill University in Montreal -making a fifth to the four previously identified type 1 diabetes genes.

The researchers confirmed the four previously identified locations for genes contributing to type 1 diabetes, but also uncovered a new type 1 diabetes locus on chromosome 16, occupied by a gene called KIAA0350.

The team then replicated this discovery in yet another independent cohort of 1,333 children with the disease from the Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, which includes children of European descent in Europe, North America and Australia, as well as in 390 additional type 1 diabetes family trios from Canada.

Findings of the said study appeared July 15 in an advance online letter in the journal Nature.

Discoveries like this are leading us closer and closer to not only identifying at the earliest those at risk of type 1 diabetes but perhaps development of gene therapy for type 1 diabetes.

Find more details from the full report.