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by Eva Hershaw via Seeker
The vaccine, which has been tested on rodents and monkeys, works by triggering antibodies that neutralize heroin's effect on the brain.
Researchers have developed a heroin vaccine that blocks users from feeling the drug’s characteristic high. As the first anti-opioid vaccine to pass preclinical testing, they have hopes that it could provide a path out of dependency for recovering heroin addicts.
“We’ve optimized a vaccine against heroin,” said Kim Janda, a professor in the chemistry and immunology department at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and a senior member of the research team. “Our hope is that this can be used in the fight against the opioid epidemic.”
The vaccine, which has proven effective in trials on rodents and monkeys, works by mimicking the unique structure of the heroin molecule and its key metabolite, 6-acetylmorphine. The vaccine, administered by way of a carrier protein, trains the body to produce antibodies that intersect and neutralize heroin, preventing it from reaching the brain and having an effect. In trials, the vaccine reduced the potency of heroin by more than 15 fold.
Authors on the research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, hope that the vaccine could eliminate the motivation for relapse among recovering heroin addicts. Current pharmacological remedies for heroin addiction have shown some effectiveness, but in-patient rehab remains costly, treatments have shown adverse side effects, and the potential for relapse remains.
The announcement comes as opioid abuse in the United States reaches epidemic levels. Between 2005 and 2015, according to the study, the number of people over the age of 12 that had used heroin in the country doubled, from 379,000 to 828,000. Heroin use in the country is at a 20-year high, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Other data suggest drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50 years of age.
The anti-heroin vaccine being developed by TSRI is the first to show effectiveness in non-human primates, in addition to rodents, a fact that researchers in the lab believe make it more likely to succeed in human applications.
“We wanted to see if a lot of the research we had done in rodents correlated, and we saw a good correlation,” Janda said. “Working with non-human primates, that’s as close as you’re going to get to humans.”
In trials on rhesus monkeys, Janda and his team found that the four primates given three doses of the vaccine showed an effective immune response. Antibodies deployed by the body were able to neutralize varying doses of heroin. While the effect was strongest in the month following vaccination, it proved to be durable, with some effect seen for as many as eight months after the treatment.
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The vaccine, which has been tested on rodents and monkeys, works by triggering antibodies that neutralize heroin's effect on the brain.
Researchers have developed a heroin vaccine that blocks users from feeling the drug’s characteristic high. As the first anti-opioid vaccine to pass preclinical testing, they have hopes that it could provide a path out of dependency for recovering heroin addicts.
“We’ve optimized a vaccine against heroin,” said Kim Janda, a professor in the chemistry and immunology department at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and a senior member of the research team. “Our hope is that this can be used in the fight against the opioid epidemic.”
The vaccine, which has proven effective in trials on rodents and monkeys, works by mimicking the unique structure of the heroin molecule and its key metabolite, 6-acetylmorphine. The vaccine, administered by way of a carrier protein, trains the body to produce antibodies that intersect and neutralize heroin, preventing it from reaching the brain and having an effect. In trials, the vaccine reduced the potency of heroin by more than 15 fold.
Authors on the research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, hope that the vaccine could eliminate the motivation for relapse among recovering heroin addicts. Current pharmacological remedies for heroin addiction have shown some effectiveness, but in-patient rehab remains costly, treatments have shown adverse side effects, and the potential for relapse remains.
The announcement comes as opioid abuse in the United States reaches epidemic levels. Between 2005 and 2015, according to the study, the number of people over the age of 12 that had used heroin in the country doubled, from 379,000 to 828,000. Heroin use in the country is at a 20-year high, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Other data suggest drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50 years of age.
The anti-heroin vaccine being developed by TSRI is the first to show effectiveness in non-human primates, in addition to rodents, a fact that researchers in the lab believe make it more likely to succeed in human applications.
“We wanted to see if a lot of the research we had done in rodents correlated, and we saw a good correlation,” Janda said. “Working with non-human primates, that’s as close as you’re going to get to humans.”
In trials on rhesus monkeys, Janda and his team found that the four primates given three doses of the vaccine showed an effective immune response. Antibodies deployed by the body were able to neutralize varying doses of heroin. While the effect was strongest in the month following vaccination, it proved to be durable, with some effect seen for as many as eight months after the treatment.
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