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AD vaccine getting closer to clinical trial...

DNA vaccine reduces both toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer’s

https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2018/dna-vaccine-alzheimers.html

A new study by UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute shows that a vaccine delivered to the skin prompts an immune response that reduces buildup of harmful tau and beta-amyloid – without triggering severe brain swelling that earlier antibody treatments caused in some patients.

“This study is the culmination of a decade of research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this vaccine can effectively and safely target in animal models what we think may cause Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Roger Rosenberg, founding Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at UT Southwestern. “I believe we’re getting close to testing this therapy in people.”

The research published in Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy demonstrates how a vaccine containing DNA coding for a segment of beta-amyloid also reduces tau in mice modeled to have Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, the vaccine elicits a different immune response that may be safe for humans. Two previous studies from Dr. Rosenberg’s lab showed similar immune responses in rabbits and monkeys.

The latest study – consisting of four cohorts of between 15 and 24 mice each – shows the vaccine prompted a 40 percent reduction in beta-amyloid and up to a 50 percent reduction in tau, with no adverse immune response. Dr. Rosenberg’s team predicts that if amyloid and tau are indeed the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, achieving these reductions in humans could have major therapeutic value.