The 10th GPPAD Investigator Meeting took place as a virtual event on 26 and 27 October 2021 – it was the only chance to meet with all our GPPAD teams, partners and sponsor from across Europe and the US during the pandemic. An extensive program with several workshops, lectures, science talks and discussions was realised on the two days of the meeting.

The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss future ancillary studies within GPPAD. In the various sessions the teams were able to share updates on ongoing studies (POInT, SINT1A and the screening study for early detection of type 1 diabetes risk). In addition, some of the identified challenges in recruiting children for the GPPAD study as well as laboratory and data specific issues were discussed in the workshops.

Two highlights of this year’s meeting were the key lectures by Dr Francisco Leon (ProventionBio), who reported on the development of a coxsackie vaccine and by Prof. Dr. Peter Achenbach (Institute of Diabetes Research, Helmholtz Zentrum München) who shared important findings how islet autoantibody type-specific titer thresholds improve stratification of risk of progression to type 1 diabetes in children.

Looking back, 2021 was a successful year by achieving important milestones in the global effort for a world without type 1 diabetes. We completed recruitment for our POInT study with 1050 children enrolled. We also successfully started the SINT1A prevention study (Supplementation with B. INfantis for Mitigation of Type 1 Diabetes Autoimmunity) in 6 GPPAD study centres in 4 countries. Already 179 infants have been enrolled in SINT1A. Two more study centres in the UK (Cambridge and Newcastle) are planned to follow in 2022.

And last but not least: We would like to thank more than 80 participants, sponsors, scientists and presenters from 6 countries (Sweden, Poland, Belgium, UK, Germany and the U.S.) for exciting presentations and interesting discussions.

We are already looking forward to our next GPPAD Investigator Meeting in 2022!