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| Dr Nikolai Petrovsky and a 3D protein model being used in the development of a possible Alzheimer’s disease vaccine. Credit: Flinders University |
With
more than 7.5 million new cases of Alzheimer's disease a year, the race to find
a vaccine and effective treatment for dementia is growing by the day.
Now,
researchers in the U.S. and Australia have made a breakthrough discovery in the
international quest to discover a new and potentially effective vaccine targeting the
pathological proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common
cause of dementia in the elderly.
In
research findings just released in Nature's Scientific Reports journal,
Flinders University experts, as part of a high-level U.S. research team at the
Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) and University of California, Irvine
(UCI), have made a successful vaccine formulation that targets the abnormal
beta-amyloid and tau proteins
that signal Alzheimer's disease.
With
more than 48 million dementia cases in 2015, Alzheimer's is emerging as one of
the costliest to the world's health care systems, especially in mature
economies in Western countries.
The
World Health Organisation has projected the total global societal cost of
dementia-related illnesses and care at more than $US600 billion a year.
"If
we are successful in pre-clinical trials, in three to five years, we could be
well on the way to one of the most important developments in recent medical
history," says Flinders University School of Medicine Professor Nikolai
Petrovsky, director of South Australian vaccine research company Vaxine Pty
Ltd.
"Along
with our rapidly aging populations, we now know that the explosion in type 2
diabetes in the West is likely to further dramatically fuel the projected rise
in the number of cases of dementia globally, with diabetes being the major risk
factor for Alzheimer's disease," Professor Petrovsky says.
The
scale of the dementia problem has seen the U.S. Congress commit a further
$US350 million to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research into
Alzheimer's disease, taking research funding in the US to more than $US1.3
billion this year.
With
NIH and Alzheimer's Association funding, the U.S. researchers say they have
developed an "exceptional" universal vaccine platform, called
MultiTEP, to target the hallmark proteins, aberrant forms of AB and tau
proteins.
β-amyloid
(AB) is a protein found to be prominent in driving Alzheimer's disease, but the
accumulation of pathological tau also correlates with the formation of dementia
in Alzheimer's patients.
Using
a combination of anti-amyloid-beta and anti-tau vaccines with powerful and safe
adjuvant technology called Advax developed by Vaxine Pty Ltd "shows
promise for both preventive and therapeutic approaches in AD," Professor
David Cribbs told Bloomberg news agency in the U.S.
Professor
Michael Agadjanyan, head of IMM Department of Molecular Immunology, says the
MultiTEP platform-based vaccines "do not induce potentially harmful
auto-reactive cellular immune responses, while still generating antibodies that
bind strongly to the amyloid and tau pathological molecules in brain tissue
from AD patients."
Co-author
of the latest paper, IMM Department of Molecular Immunology, Associate
Professor Anahit Ghochikyan, says, "This study suggests that we can
immunise patients at the early stages of AD, or even healthy people at risk for
AD, using our anti-amyloid-beta vaccine, and, if the disease progresses, then
vaccinate with another anti-tau vaccine to increase effectiveness."
She
says the cooperative studies with National Institute of Aging IMM scientists
and collaborators from UCI and the University of Southern California are
working with experts from four companies to conduct non-clinical
safety-toxicology studies to fulfil US Government safety standards for the
Investigational New Drug application.
After
completion of these pre-clinical studies, they plan to test the immunogenicity
and efficacy of the new vaccines in human trials.
Cutting-edge
research company Vaxine Pty Ltd is internationally renowned for developing the
world's first swine flu vaccine during the 2009 pandemic and is active on other
fronts including Ebola and Zika virus research.
The
vaxine is funded by the U.S. NIH to develop novel compounds called adjuvants
that play a critical role in maximising vaccine effectiveness. The Vaxine Advax
adjuvant technology is a key component in the development of IMM's Alzheimer's
vaccine.
More
information: Hayk Davtyan et al. Alzheimer's disease
AdvaxCpG- adjuvanted MultiTEP-based dual and single vaccines induce high-titer
antibodies against various forms of tau and Aβ pathological molecules, Scientific
Reports (2016). DOI:
10.1038/srep28912
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-07-world-alzheimer-vaccine.html
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