After 26-years with diabetes, Suzy Won Davidson knows the drill. And at 36, year's-old, she's no longer the child who once dreamed of a cure.

"'We'll find a cure,'" she said. "'About five years. Give us five years.' So every five years another five years would go by and I'd say, 'Wow. There's not a cure yet.'"

Not yet, but Suzy finds renewed hope in a lab at University of California, Irvine.

In tests on human blood cells, researchers blocked destructive cells responsible for juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, actually stopping the diseases in rats. Their weapons are modified compounds from sea anemone venom and a compound from this shrub.

"At this stage we don't know if it'll be a long term treatment or if treatment for a period of time will completely suppress the disease and prevent it from coming back," said Dr. Christine Beeton, a physiology researcher.

In autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks the body's own tissue. The attacking cells need ion channels to function. But using compounds from a rue plant and a sea anemone, researchers blocked those channels without blocking cells needed to fight infection.

"It gives us more clues. It's sort of like putting a jigsaw puzzle together where the more pieces you can fill in, the easier it is to fill in the rest of the puzzle," said Suzie.

Now that researchers have proven the compounds work in-vitro on human cells and in animal tests, they hope to begin testing in humans in the next few years.

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