Vaccine Against Autoimmune Disease to Be Tested

September 8, 2003

Mon September 8, 2003 09:52 AM ET

By Reaney

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - British scientists are developing

vaccines to reprogram the body's natural defenses against autoimmune

diseases such as arthritis, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

Dr Neil , of the University of Bristol in southwestern England,

told a science conference on Monday that he and his colleagues hope to

begin human safety trials of the vaccine early next year.

Autoimmune disorders, which affect about five percent of the British

population, occur when something goes wrong with the immune system and

it attacks the body's own tissue.

" The vaccines we are working on are able to re-educate the immune system

to reset the balances and put the controls back in place to stop these

diseases from continuing to progress, " said.

The vaccines are based on a protein derived from a bacterium.

found that when it is introduced into the body it turns on the immune

system controls and stops inflammatory diseases like arthritis and

diabetes.

" So far, we know that this works very well in models of these diseases

and we will be moving into our first trials in humans in the next six

months, " he added at the week-long meeting of the British Association

for the Advancement of Science.

Using a vaccine against autoimmune diseases is not a new concept but

until now it has not been very successful.

In a study of a strain of mice that naturally develop diabetes, the

vaccine, which is being developed with the backing of British biotech

company Hunter-Fleming Ltd, reduced the occurrence of the illness from

80 to 15 percent.

If trials of the vaccine in humans are successful it would be an

entirely new approach to treating inflammatory diseases.

anticipates the vaccine will have to be given over a short course of

time and may have to be repeated periodically.

Dr Bunce, of the British biotech firm Xenova Group Plc, also

told the meeting about its vaccines which are designed to reduce

addiction to nicotine and cocaine by producing antibodies that prevent

the compounds from getting into the brain, which is the key to

addiction.

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