Latest news with #inversevaccines
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'Inverse' vaccines may hold key to challenge autoimmune diseases
NEW YORK, June 30 (UPI) -- For the millions of Americans battling autoimmune disorders, new hope may be on the horizon in the form of reverse or inverse vaccines -- injections that target a specific part of the immune system. experts told UPI. However, these injections work differently from conventional immunizations like the flu shot and currently available immunosuppressant treatments for autoimmune conditions. They work by targeting only the specific part of the immune system that's behind diseases such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes, the experts say. "Inverse vaccines are being developed to treat undesired immune responses, [and] for these situations, the body is reacting to something that is not dangerous," said Lonnie Shea, a researcher in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan who has studied inverse vaccines and worked on some of the key technology behind them. "A vaccine activates an immune response to a specific antigen," Shea told UPI via email. Inverse vaccines are being developed to treat undesired immune responses, [and] for these situations, the body is reacting to something that is not dangerous. Essentially, an inverse vaccine "aims to decrease the response to a specific antigen, like insulin in Type 1 diabetes," he added. First line of defense When healthy, the immune system is the body's first line of defense against diseases such as cancer and infections caused by viruses and bacteria, according to the National Institutes of Health. However, if the immune system isn't working properly, it can erroneously attack healthy cells, tissues and organs, causing autoimmune diseases that can affect any part of the body, weakening function and potentially leading to death, the NIH says. More than 80 autoimmune diseases are known, some of which are caused by exposure to environmental toxins and have no discovered cure. At least 15 million people in the United States, or about 5% of the population, have an autoimmune disease, the agency reports. Although no cure exists for these conditions, symptoms can be managed with drugs called immunosuppressants, which as the name suggests "broadly reduces your immune system response," Shea said. These drugs, which are typically administered via monthly injections, can have significant side effects, including making those taking them more susceptible to infections, according to the NIH. Many people taking them also have to be careful taking traditional vaccines, such as flu shot or COVID-19 shots because of their impact on the immune system. Training the immune system Developed by researchers at the University of Chicago and elsewhere, inverse vaccines use synthetic nanoparticles attached to specific disease-related proteins, or antigens, to train certain parts of the immune system to behave differently, limiting the attacks that cause autoimmune diseases, neurologist Dr. Lawrence Steinman said. With the inverse vaccines currently being studied, the nanoparticles are designed to mimic human cell death, which is a normal process in the human body, according to the 2021 study that first documented their effectiveness in people with celiac disease, another autoimmune disorder. Dying cells are considered foreign bodies, but the human immune system knows not to attack them. As a result, with the nanoparticles in inverse vaccines, the immune system can be trained not to attack them, or the proteins attached to them, which effectively short-circuits the process behind autoimmune diseases, Steinman said. "Instead of immunizing the recipient to a viral infection, the inverse vaccine tolerizes the immune system, so it will not attack our own tissues," Steinman, who has written about inverse vaccines, told UPI in an email. Several companies are running clinical trials of inverse vaccines, including Cour Pharma, which recently completed successful phase 2 clinical trials for their use in celiac disease and another autoimmune disease, primary biliary cholangitis, according to Shea at the University of Michigan, one of the researchers who started the company. Additional trials -- phase 2 studies are the second stage in the drug research and development process -- are starting for myasthenia gravis and Type 1 diabetes, he added. Although more research is needed before the shots become available, a process that could take five years or more, inverse vaccines offer key advantages, Shea said. For example, unlike immunosuppressants with their monthly dosing, the effects of inverse vaccines appear to last longer, perhaps for as much as a year, similar to conventional vaccines, research suggests. They may also work for people with severe, life-threatening allergies, such as peanut allergies, according to Shea, who has published a study in this area using mice. However, there's also the "risk that instead of tolerizing the human immune system to the target, the process induces conventional immunization, which would make autoimmune conditions like Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis worse," Steinman said. However, "We have come close to success in some early-stage trials," he said "Thus far, none of the results are sufficiently robust for submission in the FDA approval process."
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Inverse vaccines': the promise of a ‘holy grail' treatment for autoimmune diseases
Autoimmune diseases affect as many as 800 million people around the world – around one in 10 of us. From multiple sclerosis and lupus to type one diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, these conditions all share a common trait: the body's own immune system turns against itself. Current treatments aim to suppress that response, but dialing down the entire immune system comes at a steep cost: it leaves patients vulnerable to other illnesses and often requires daily, invasive care. A revolution is now underfoot, as researchers are developing a new approach that targets only the specific part of the immune system that's gone rogue. These treatments are known as 'inverse vaccines' because they suppress a particular part of the immune system, rather than amplifying it, as existing vaccines do. 'This is the holy grail,' says Northwestern University immunologist Stephen Miller. 'We want to use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to treat these diseases.' Miller's 2021 paper, published in 2022 in Gastroenterology, was the first to demonstrate that inverse vaccines could be effective in humans. The study looked at celiac disease, in which the immune system attacks the intestinal lining when it detects the presence of gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains. Over two weeks, 33 celiac patients who were in remission ingested gluten; about half had received the inverse vaccine beforehand, while the other half got a placebo. After two weeks, researchers examined the subjects' intestinal lining and found that the inverse vaccine group had no damage, while the placebo group showed a noticeable worsening of symptoms. The basic idea of inverse vaccines rests on using certain synthetic nanoparticles attached to particular disease-related proteins – called antigens – as targeted messengers to retrain the immune system. The nanoparticles mimic dying human cells, a normal ongoing process. Although these dying cells are 'foreign', the immune system knows not to attack them. The immune system learns to ignore both the nanoparticles and the attached proteins, and stops attacking the body. 'What this does is, it re-educates the immune system,' says NYU bioengineer Jeffrey Hubbell. 'So then it says: 'OK, I'm good, I don't need to attack this, because I see that it's not a threat.'' In 2023, Hubbell and his colleagues published a peer-reviewed paper in Nature showing that this method could halt the mouse version of multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease in which the immune system attacks nerve cells in the brain and body. Over the past eight months, Anokion, the company started by Hubbell and others to commercialize their work, has announced successful early trials in humans in both celiac disease and MS. 'There have been more than a few tears of happiness shed by me and my team when we've seen the clinical results,' Hubbell says. The discovery that certain negatively charged molecules could re-train the immune system to stop attacking our own tissues was 'absolute serendipity', says University of Calgary immunologist Pere Santamaria. He was among the first scientists to uncover this. 'I would never have guessed it,' he says. 'Not even in my wildest dreams.' Santamaria has spent most of his career focusing on type one diabetes, a disease in which the immune system attacks the pancreas cells that produce insulin. Recently though, he has begun exploring inverse vaccines for other autoimmune disorders, including a disease called primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) that affects bile ducts in the liver. One advantage of working on PBC is that because it is rare, clinical trials don't require nearly as many patients; as a result, the drug approval process can move more quickly. 'And once we get approval for one indication, we may be able to go faster with others,' Santamaria says. One of the key advantages of inverse vaccines is their broad versatility; it appears that the approach can work for a wide range of autoimmune diseases. 'It works all the time in animals,' says Santamaria. 'We've tried this in many different animal models of autoimmune disease.' (Of course, success in animal studies doesn't automatically translate to success in humans.) Last year, Bana Jabri, the director of Institut Imagine in Paris, cowrote a review of inverse vaccine efforts. She is cautiously optimistic about their potential, but also notes that the immune system is immensely complex. Some immune cells, for example, circulate throughout the body, while others reside permanently in specific tissues. Jabri says it's not yet clear that current inverse immune treatments can affect both kinds of cells. Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion Another potential advantage: most researchers say that the effect will likely last for months or perhaps longer – similar to the pattern seen for many non-inverse vaccines. 'The immune system is incredible,' Hubbell says. 'It has a memory, and that memory lasts.' Currently, most treatments for autoimmune disease require more frequent treatment, often a regimen of daily medicine. In addition, inverse vaccines seem to have benefits beyond autoimmunity. They may work for allergies, which also involve an overreaction by the immune system – in this case to a food or environmental trigger rather than one's own body. In 2022, Miller and his colleague, University of Michigan biomedical engineer Lonnie Shea, published a small study with mice with peanut allergy. The animals who received an inverse vaccine were able to consume significantly more peanuts without symptoms than those who did not get the vaccine. Last month, Hubbell and several colleagues published a paper in Science Translational Medicine showing that their inverse vaccine could protect allergic mice from house dust mite antigens, a frequent cause of asthma, as well as antigens to chicken egg whites, a common experimental model for allergy. The protection held up through repeated exposures to the allergens over several months. And last year, Shea, the University of Michigan the biomedical engineer, published a paper looking at alpha-gal syndrome, a potentially severe allergy to meat caused by tick bites. Infected mice who were given an inverse vaccine showed significantly fewer symptoms than those who were given a placebo. 'We were able to basically convince the immune system that these proteins are not dangerous,' Shea says. At this point, it is difficult to say how long it will be before inverse vaccines are approved for human use. Miller, Shea, Hubbell, Santamaria and other researchers are involved in startup biotech companies working to develop them. Some larger pharmaceutical companies are also bullish on the approach, and are partnering with startups. In December, Genentech announced a partnership with Cour, the company started by Miller and Shea, that could be worth up to $900m. Last year, Parvus, the startup founded by Santamaria, entered into a collaboration with the pharmaceutical company AbbVie. Several inverse vaccines are now in the midst of or about to start phase two trials, small studies looking at how effective the treatment is in humans. Some scientists estimate that the first inverse vaccines could be available for use in three to five years. Others are less certain. 'I think it will take 10 years to have it nailed down,' Jabri says. 'But it could be shorter, or it could be longer.' Even so, nearly all are optimistic. 'Twenty years ago, I would have told you this wasn't possible, absolutely not,' says Miller. 'Today, I can say that it will happen. No doubt.'
