More people throughout the developed world are being diagnosed with the disease, but researchers are racing to find a cure and Australian researchers are at the leading edge.

Many researchers are positive they will develop an accessible cure in their lifetimes.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation chief executive Mike Wilson said it was important to recognise how far researchers had come in the past few decades.

A diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes 35 years ago would have meant having to inject with a glass syringe sharpened on a stone and having to boil urine on a stove to measure blood sugar levels.

''The tools and techniques available for day-to-day management, which is still a challenge, are vastly improved,'' Mr Wilson said.

''Many of the researchers of whom we speak are very confident that a cure will be found in their lifetime and to me, that's very positive because some of them are well-established and have a lot of grey hair.''

There are two large research endeavours in Australia in the area of Type 1 diabetes: one is developing a cure for the disease and the other creating a vaccine.

The first is a national pilot transplant program, which runs out of Westmead Hospital in Sydney and St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne. It involves separating insulin producing cells from a donated pancreas.

Rather than transplanting the whole organ, just the insulin producing cells can be transplanted into someone with Type 1 diabetes.

Professor of endocrinology at the Garvan Institute Don Chisholm said each centre had achieved successful transplants with a handful of patients.

''But it's a very difficult and expensive procedure and its early days yet in Australia,'' Professor Chisholm said.

''At the moment, it still requires substantial immunosuppressive drugs, as would be needed if you transplanted any other organ.''

Another project involves developing a nasal spray Type 1 diabetes vaccine.

A trial for the vaccine, called the INIT II Type 1 diabetes prevention trial, is taking place across Australia and researchers are looking for test subjects. Researchers plan to involve hundreds of people who are relatives of people with diabetes.

The trial will involve using insulin sprayed into the nose, which could divert the immune system away from attacking the insulin producing cells in someone with Type 1 diabetes.

''If the trial is successful, then it would be an enormous step down the track [to a prevention],'' Professor Chisholm said.

In the past 10 years, Type 1 diabetes has doubled in children under the age of five. Across all ages, Type 1 diabetes is increasing at a rate of about 3 per cent each year.

Mr Wilson said the cost of delay in finding a cure was measured in the people impacted by the disease.

''It's measured not just in years but in the five people that are diagnosed every day and the people who suffer heart attacks or lose limbs or go blind every year as a result of complications,'' he said.