The U.S. Patent Office has granted the USA patent, numbered US 15/553,575, for the invention entitled ‘A METHOD FOR THE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF A PRE-DIABETIC STATE AND TYPE 2 DIABETES’. The patent is owned by researchers from the Nencki Institute, which holds full exclusivity to this invention: Prof. Agnieszka Dobrzyn and Dr. Kamil Kozinski from the Laboratory of Cell Signaling and Metabolic Disorders, and Prof. Pawel Dobrzyn and Dr. Tomasz Bednarski from the Laboratory of Molecular Medical Biochemistry.

The invention is focused on the development of a widely available test (PreT2D Sensor), to enable early diagnosis of type 2 diabetes at the primary stages of its development, enabling earlier prevention and therapeutic actions, and minimizing the effects of this disease. Type 2 diabetes develops well before the onset of clinical symptoms. It is estimated that the current diagnosis of type 2 diabetes is made almost 10 years after the onset of changes when it is generally too late for any prophylactic treatment. Up until now, there was no available test that would allow easy and inexpensive early diagnosis of insulin resistance or pre-diabetes.

PreT2D Sensor will enable earlier (approximately 5-8 years) detection of insulin resistance compared to current methods. The invention is based on our novel unique idea for the diagnosis of insulin resistance or very early pre-diabetes, by determining the concentration of Wnt3a and Wnt4 proteins in blood samples.