EU project to develop new Alzheimer's vaccine
Scientists in Mimovax, a newly launched EU funded project, say they are well on the way to developing a brand new Alzheimer's vaccine. They are focusing on the use of immune reactions to fight the known and less well known beta amyloid proteins that are thought to cause the disease. Alzheimer's is a progressive, degenerative and irreversible brain disorder that causes intellectual impairment, disorientation and eventually death. There is no cure. It is estimated that 5.4 million people in the European Union currently have dementia, while one in every 20 people over the age of 65 suffers from Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia. The onset of the disease has been linked to plaques which form when fragments of the protein, beta-amyloid, break off from the cell membrane and gather to form clumps in the brain. 'These peptides are toxic for the brain: they contain 40-42 amino acids that accumulate in the brain cells, preventing the cells from communicating with another and resulting in their death,' Dr Frank Mattner, Project coordinator from the Austrian company Affiris Gmbh, told CORDIS News. The vaccine, which is being developed by the seven partners, aims to stop the accumulation of the peptides with 42 amino acids by triggering the immune system to attack the peptides. This is not the first attempt at developing a vaccine for Alzheimer's based on immune reactions. 'A previously-tested vaccine used the amino acids themselves to attack the plaques. Patients were injected with the self-protein [beta-amyloid] in order to generate the antibodies to destroy plaques in the brain,' Dr Mattner explained. The vaccine had been shown to clear beta amyloid plaques in mice brains by stimulating an immune response to the protein. But the outcome of the human vaccine trial proved to be fatal. 'Some of the patients developed an auto-immune disease as a result of the vaccine, and there were even some cases of death,' said Dr Mattner. 'Our approach is different. We are not using the self-protein,' he told CORDIS News. Instead, the project partners will use the mimotope - a sequence capable of inducing the production of antibodies against the degenerated form of the protein, without attacking the natural form. 'The mimotope is tailor-made to attack the beta-amyloid containing 42 amino acids and induce the desired immune responses,' he explained. The approach has already been proven in the first vaccine developed by Affiris. The researchers will also target peptides, which comprise fewer than 42-amino acids, since they are also found in the plaques responsible for killing brain cells. Currently no vaccine programme has been developed to date to tackle these peptides. Over the next three years, the project partners will conduct both pre-clinical and the first clinical phases of development for the new vaccine. The project, which is coordinated by Affiris, includes industry and academic partners from Austria, Germany and Spain. The ultimate aim is to have a therapeutic vaccine, but project partners have not ruled out the vaccine being used as a preventative measure for Alzheimer's. 'First we will have to show that the vaccine is functioning before we can think about using it for preventative purposes,' said Dr Mattner.
Countries
Austria