SEATTLE - Twelve-year-old Rylan Martin is testing a cancer drug called rituximab. It's approved to treat lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis, but Rylan doesn't have either one.

"We know that for people who have other autoimmune diseases it works, so now we want to test it to see if it can help people like Rylan who have Type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Carla Greenbaum of Seattle's Benaroya Research Institute.

This isn't the first time the Martin family has dealt with Type 1 diabetes.

"Our youngest was diagnosed a long time ago when he was 11 months old; he's 10 now," said Wendy Martin.

Rylan was diagnosed in August and enrolled in the study soon after.

"Our goal here is to take people at the time to diagnosis, when they still have some cells, and say can we keep that going, can we keep that honeymoon phase going," said Dr. Greenbaum

Rylan doesn't know if his four infusions contained the real drug or a placebo, but knows he's making a contribution one way or the other.

"Just to find a cure or other ways to prevent it," he said.

"It's a hard way to live, it's hard in school, it's hard to deal with it and the vigilance it takes to stay on top of it... so I hope that we can save somebody else," said Wendy.

The ultimate goal would be to intervene much earlier in the disease process.

"If we can show that we can stop the immune system at the time of diagnosis, we then want to treat people who don't yet have the disease, but whose immune system has started attacking the insulin producing cells to prevent the disease because really in the long run that's the ultimate goal," said Dr. Greenbaum.

Unlike many cancer drugs, rituximab will not cause hair loss.

Eligible participants need to be newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and between the ages of 12 and 45 years old. Two out of three patients will get the study drug, the others will get a placebo. For more information call 1-800-888-4187.