Walk to Cure Diabetes on September 18

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the world’s largest charitable funder of type 1 diabetes research, today announced that for the first time its signature fundraising event, the Walk to Cure Diabetes, will be held in Santa Barbara at Leadbetter Beach on Saturday, September 18, 2010.

The Greater Los Angeles Chapter of JDRF chose to hold the Walk to Cure Diabetes in Santa Barbara in support of the growing JDRF Tri-Counties Council (TCC), whose mission is to offer support for individuals, families and friends affected by type 1 diabetes. The JDRF’s TCC was started in 2009 by a founding committee comprised of parents of type 1 children and adults living with type 1 and serves Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties which have an estimated 14,000 individuals with type 1 diabetes.

“The TCC committee has worked hard to establish a presence and offer a network of services in the Tri-Counties area,” said Laurie DeSchryver, president of the TCC and chair of the Santa Barbara Walk to Cure Diabetes. “Since my son was diagnosed more than five years ago, the work that we’ve done in the past two years is the only type of support or acknowledgement of type 1 diabetes that we’ve found on the Central Coast. I feel that the Santa Barbara Walk to Cure Diabetes will build on the groundwork that has been laid and continue to grow the services and support that the JDRF is providing in this area.”

JDRF is also pleased to announce that Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (SDRI), a non-profit research center devoted to the prevention, treatment and cure of diabetes through research and education, has agreed to be the Community Partner for the Santa Barbara Walk.

“Our partnership with SDRI is a natural fit as they are a JDRF-funded grant recipient for the JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project, which is aimed at assessing new diabetes technologies and helping to accelerate their availability for patients,“ said Bob Reid, JDRF Greater Los Angeles Chapter Executive Director. “SDRI has been a part of the JDRF Artificial Pancreas since it launched in 2006. The artificial pancreas system is currently being used in clinical trials around the globe and is an essential step toward an ultimate cure for type 1 diabetes.”

”We at Sansum Diabetes Research Institute are thrilled to be the community partner for the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes,” stated Lois Jovanovic, M.D., CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Sansum Diabetes Research Institute. “We are grateful for the research support we have received from JDRF and commend the tremendous work of the TCC to bring diabetes awareness to the tri-county area. The Walk is a wonderful opportunity for our educational outreach clients to walk with us to support diabetes education and research.”

JDRF Walks are held in more than 200 cities worldwide. Nearly 500,000 people nationally walked last year and raised over $90 million to cure diabetes. For more information or to register for the Santa Barbara Walk To Cure Diabetes, please visit www.walk.jdrf.org.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International is a leader in setting the agenda for diabetes research worldwide, and is the largest charitable funder and advocate of type 1 diabetes research. The mission of JDRF is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. Type 1 diabetes is a disease that strikes children and adults suddenly and requires multiple injections of insulin daily or a continuous infusion of insulin through a pump. Insulin, however, is not a cure for diabetes, nor does it prevent its eventual and devastating complications, which may include kidney failure, blindness, heart disease, stroke and amputation.

Since its founding in 1970 by parents of children with type 1 diabetes, JDRF has awarded more than $1.4 billion to diabetes research, including more than $100 million in FY2009.

The JDRF Tri-Counties Council (TCC) is part of the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of JDRF. The mission of the TCC is to offer support for individuals, families and friends affected by type 1 diabetes in the Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The TCC was started in 2009 by a founding committee comprised of parents of type 1 children and adults living with type 1. The goal of the TCC is to distribute Bags of Hope to newly diagnosed families, offer peer support to type 1 diabetics and their family and friends and to offer ongoing activities that encourage the type 1 community to come together in support of one another. Currently the TCC consist of more than 200 families, individuals and members of the diabetic medical community.

Sansum Diabetes Research Institute was founded in Santa Barbara in 1944 by William D. Sansum, M.D., one of the first physicians in the United States to administer life-saving insulin to people with diabetes. Dr. Sansum established the Institute, a non-profit organization, in order to carry out his mission to find a cure for diabetes. For 65 years, the Institute has been dedicated to research and education in the prevention, treatment and cure of diabetes. Its director is a world authority on diabetes and pregnancy, and the Institute is at the forefront of the development of an artificial pancreas.