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DNA Vaccine May Treat Multiple Sclerosis
GSASoftware writes "Multiple sclerosis is a serious, as-yet incurable neurological disease which causes blindness, paralysis and other serious symptoms. In a new development, a neuroimmunology researcher in Montreal has developed a therapeutic DNA vaccine. The cause of the disease is not fully understood, but it appears to be auto-immune. If a DNA vaccine can be an effective therapy for this auto-immune disease, is it possible that DNA vaccines could treat other auto-immune diseases like Crohn's, eczema, and others?"
DNA Vaccine May Treat Multiple Sclerosis
The best vaccine against unwanted "DNA" is a condom. If it helps against Multiple Sclerosis too, that's fantastic.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'd be more worried as to why one would eat a blue dress in the first place...
Cheers, Chris
There's always the possibility that it *could* work for other auto-immune diseases.
It's kind of mute point, though, to ask such a hypothetical question when the original story is about a new therapeutic DNA vaccine that only produces "beneficial changes" with "periods of remission".
While this is a huge step forward, it is far from being introduced into the mainstream medical community for mass use. TFA states that it is in the early stages of being studied.
Although the article does say that it's possible that it could be developed for other auto-immune diseases, I think it's a little preemptive to start asking such hypothetical questions when the target disease for which the drug is being developed isn't even out of the test stage.
My mother has MS and I know others as well that have it. It is such a horrible disease. I hope this research continues and is a viable option and soon. Nothing is worse than seeing a parent or loved one just lose their abilities over a few years.
lol.. well, it was the goo err glue that bound the president to the accusation. changing this DNA could have changed history.
First off, IANAD, though both my mother and aunt are. My aunt has fairly severe MS, she can't walk, lost some dexterity in her left arm, etc. What is interesting is that my mother is an identical twin, and doesn't suffer from MS at all. They did some experimental treatments utilizing this unique situation, one of which was some sort of combination of Chemo therapy and a bone marrow transplant. Does this vaccine simple get rid of some "risk factors" in the DNA? Obviously I'd find it hard to believe that there is a direct relationship between DNA and MS. . .
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
i just hope it doesnt mess with the sex chromosomes- wouldn't that be fun to explain.
Multiple sclerosis is when your immune system attacks a nerve's covering called myelin. What the vaccine does is it gets the immune system to stop targetting the myelin by causing a reduction in the T-cells that attack it. If it works as they say, and have demonstrated, it only reduces the number of T-cells that target the myelin protein, not other stuff.
Good grief, why don't they just get on with it and call it gene therapy. All this 'therapeutic DNA vaccine' is it because you think people will be scared by something genetic?
ZOMG! zombie mutant viruses NO WAY!
I surely hope that this vaccine is proven safe, and is available in the USA VERY SOON!!!
I have a close relative with MS and know several others..
= Grow a brain...
Hell, some of these dolts are scared by the 'vaccine' part of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_vaccination
DNA is the active ingredient of the vaccine, if they mean what people usually mean by "DNA vaccine".
To vaccinate against a pathogen, you'd take some gene from it that codes for a surface protein, inject that DNA into muscle cells, let them express it and produce the protein, and the immune system would learn to react.
Which leaves plenty of confusion, since the goal of MS therapy would be to turn off the immune response to myelin, not to create an immune response.
This isn't about gene therapy.
I'd take a cure for eczema any day, I think people don't appreciate the kind of pain n eczema sufferers go through on a daily basis, just showering each morning is agony, and they still expect you to get into work all bright and cheery! Last I read, 1 in 4 people suffer from eczema with varying theories on its cause ranging from poor regulation of body temperature to diet, to genetics. It's all horse, frankly it showed me from an early age how weak our medicine arsenal is when I am explained on every visit to the docs that the continued use of steroids is the only way to abait the eczema induced pain.
Remember, it's not lupus.
http://itsnotlup.us/
since i was 25 i got crohn disease, i had acne since i was 15, and after 10 years i was full of that stupid disease so i took this peace of crap - http://www.drugs.com/accutane.html - and as a present i got crohn and my acne didn't disappear :(
i'm living with those two for 11 years and believe me, it's not easy...
i'm really happy...
http://www.crohns.org/treatment/vaccine.htm
i hope it will help others too...
The article reports the findings from 30 patients - meaning that the trial was testing only whether the therapy was safe. The authors' note that most patients did not progress (to develop worse disease) is only parenthetical, though the information can be used to estimate how many patients will have to be tested to determine efficacy. Frankly, I don't see a solid rational for a therapeutic mechanism, but if it works, great, and we'll learn something about MS and immunology in figuring out how it works.
There is an extremely effective new therapy for MS that blocks immune cells (lymphocytes) from their normal "trafficking" through the brain. Since the lymphocytes are responsible for the neuronal damage that underlies MS, the symptoms of MS did not worsen in the vast majority of the thousands of patients who used the drug. Unfortunately, in a small number of patients, the lymphocytes are also responsible for controlling a virus that is latent in their brain. In some of these patients, the virus became active and some patients died before the cause was recognized. Here is a link to the abstract of a free research paper that summarizes current understanding. I have no financial interest in the success of this drug (generic name = natalizumab, trade name = Tysabri).
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
This is very good news if it really works out. There have been many treatments claiming the Holy Grail before, but did nothing much except for the side effects. MS is arguably one of the worst illnesses around. My older brother suffered from it from the age of 19 until he died at the age of 32. The illness itself might not be the worst, but rather the knowledge that it will never get better is what is so hard. My brother graduated tax law with honors, but he had to stop working after a year because of his degrading eyesight. And besides physical inconveniances there are also the pshychological consequences. Remember it attacks all nerves: it changes personalities of people as well.
That said I really hope that this is what is seems it is.
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
Hoping that one day we will get one for the most irritating disease, herpes, aswell...
Can't you just get one?
As someone suffering from MS, this is great news. Currently there are few options to treat the disease, and none are guaranteed to work. If they do work, its marginal at best. :( Currently, I take a weekly injection of interferon to try to slow down disease progression, but it can only slow the disease down at most 30-40%. Hopefully in my lifetime the disease progression can be stopped dead in its tracks. This is a good start...
Wouldn't a "DNA vaccine" be something that keeps you from getting DNA? Like the way the Polio vaccine keeps you from getting Polio?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The researchers say if it all goes well, that it's possible that antigen-specific DNA vaccines could one day be developed for treatment of related diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. My mother has rheumatoid arthritis, and while it's not as bad as MS, it's certainly had its toll on her. DNA vaccines seem to be very promising, and I hope that the research begins to bring real results.
I haven't read the details of the study, but here's what's basically going on, from what I can tell so far... MS is a disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin in Schwann cells. Myelin is an "electrical insulator" in the cell membrane of Schwann cells. Schwann cells wrap around the axons of nerve cells in segments and the electrical signal basically jumps across the Schwann cell segments, increasing the speed of conduction. In MS, the body's immune system sees myelin as a foreign invader and attacks it and slowly consumes the myelin, eventually making the nerves non-functional.
The vaccine is actually a virus. It doesn't say specifically in the article, but I suspect it's an adenovirus because they're pretty good for this kind of thing. The DNA sequence for the Myelin basic protein (MBP) is encoded into the virus. There are actually several variants of MBP and I'm curious if they're introducing just one variant or multiple variants. Anyway, MBP is involved in myelination of nerves. I don't think this part is well understood, but in studies of mice where the gene for myelin basic protein has been removed (mice with a certain gene or genes removed are called knockout mice), they develop diseases similar to MS.
Anyway, it's cool stuff and this kind of technology is really the future of treatment for a lot of diseases. There's a protein called p53 that's involved in the normal regulation of cell death and when the gene for P53 gets mutated, it can lead to cancer. p53 is implicated in roughly half of all cancers. One possible treatment is to come up with an virus with a normal p53 gene encoded in it and use that to turn the cancer cells back into normal cells that die properly. There are a host of other genetic based diseases where this kind of thing could be useful as well.
GSASoftware wrote:
> The cause of the disease is not fully understood, but it appears to
> be auto-immune.
It is auto-immune; there is no question about that, and there hasn't
been for a few decades now.
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2000; I got my first
symptoms when I was 19 years old while I was overseas (imagine waking
up one morning with half your vision gone in one eye). My mother has
MS too. That there is a genetic factor has always been
known. Typically, if a close relative has MS, you have about a 3%
chance of developing the condition yourself (I won that lottery). One
popular theory is that there is a substantial number of genes that
have to possess certain characteristics in order for a person to be
predisposed to developing the condition, and then exposure to some
pathogen triggers the immune system to learn to attack the myelin
around the axons. MS is so strange a disease that experts are not
quick to jump onto any one bandwagon in terms of what actually causes
MS.
The recent findings by Dr. Stephen Hauser's team have identified the
IL2R and IL7R genes as specifically involved, and it will likely be
the case that several more genes will be correlated. It is only very
recently have actual genes been linked to the condition (and my
personal belief is that the anti-stem cell research position of the
U.S. government has been and will continue to be a major hindrance in
genetic research on MS, but that is for another thread).
There is more good news; Dr. Giovanna Bersellino's team has recently
identified another subgroup of suppressor cells that tend to be
diminished in patients with MS:
http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news221805
The medication I am currently taking (interferon beta-1a injections)
is the best known-safe treatment we have, but it really is not that
much different from what has been being used since 1993. The thing is,
nobody really knows exactly why it works; the info sheet that ships
with my medication reads, "The specific interferon-induced proteins
and mechanisms by which interferon beta-1a exerts it effects in
multiple sclerosis have not been fully defined." On average, it slows
clinical progression (number of lesions in the nervous system) by
about 30%, but MS and its treatments are ellusive. It could be very
mild or very aggressive, and various medications can be very effective
or completely ineffective for different people with MS.
Other possible treatments under investigation include cladribine,
fingolimod, BG00012, MN-166, SB-683699, teriflunomide, atorvastatin
calcium, BHT-3009-01, CNTO 1275, daclizumab, rituximab, Estriol,
ABT-874, Cyclophosphamide, methylprednisolone, MBP8298, Fampridine-SR,
Lamotrigine, tetrahydrocannabinol, and so on. MS is a really hard
problem, and scientists are hitting it from all kinds of different
directions. MS requires several cures. We need to figure out what gets
it to start in the first place and to prevent it from happening at
all. We need to stop the disease in its tracks for those who have
already developed it. Finally, we need to repair the damage that has
been done to the nervous system.
This new vaccine is good news, but people with MS have learned to curb
their enthusiasm whenever new research discoveries are made. All too
often, promising new treatments turn out to have life-threatening side
effects (messing with how your immune system does its job in your
brain is tricky business).
It's spelled "Clinus".
I every time someone claims to of found a "cure" for MS I shutter. I know it's far too lucrative for big pharm to lose. When a single monthly box of my injections cost over 2 grand? I mean, let's be honest with ourselves kiddies. I'm not expecting a cure anytime soon and neither should you. This is modern day snake oil because they bank on us being such a hopeless lot. We're given about 50 years, the knowledge that we're just going to get WORSE and then told how much our meds cost. Any glimmer of hope seems good until you become cynical. Diagnosed 2004
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
...will people have to live in fear of contracting DNA. It is alarming how widespread it is among people today -- it can be a fatal mistake to assume that you do not already have DNA. Seek medical care immediately for treatment of symptoms. I really can't stress this enough: virtually every living thing with DNA will *DIE* within a matter of decades! Please, make sure your children get this vaccine before it's too late for us all.
"Strangers have the best candy" -Me
system gets screwed up, either through an inheritable pre-disposition to environmental triggers or through the action of those environment triggers.
I am a not a doctor but I DO have MS.
MS may be a syndrome for a whole bunch of DNA/RAN transcription errors which can either be ignored because the triggers never occur or which can really fuck up your life by transforming what would normally just be a sneeze (an allergic reaction) into a life-threatening episode.
I never get the flu, I get episodes of MS instead (or "as well as').
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm unclear as to why you took so much offense to the GP's attempted humor.
His joke itself, of course, was not funny. It's a play on the wording of the title. Instead of parsing it as a DNA vaccine against MS, he parsed "DNA Vaccine" as a vaccine against DNA. The attempted humor being, if you don't want to be "infected" with DNA, use a condom.
You somehow interpreted his joke to imply that MS was caused by unprotected sex. I didn't read the post that way, and anyhow, I have never heard anyone suggest, either credibly or in jest, that MS is an STD.
In fact, I found the "joke" to only be making fun of the article's title, and not MS itself. As hard as I try, and as many angles as I search, I am unable to come up with any situation in which MS could be humorous.
Wife diagnosed in '05.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I come from a family of research scientists personally afflicted with 5 cancers and 4 autoimmune diseases, and I would like to say that "Possibilities" are what keep us on our technical toes, help us "connect the discovery dots" and give hope to patients and those that love them. Our team is currently working on graph theory network maps (similar to those you might find in "WIRED" showing all the servers communicating over the web) that link all known drugs, diseases, biological agents and successful clinical outcomes reported in the peer-reviewed evidence (1949-2007>). Our model applies mathematical weights to each connection (edge) and then seeks to calculate the probability that DRUG A used for RELATED DISEASE 1...might also CURE...DISEASE 2, 3, ...n. You might think of this "Network" as a special type of TCP: Transmissive Curative Packet Net where drugs "talk to diseases." We test the model by going back in time in the data to see if the connections, scientific observations, made between 1949-1989 are strong and can predict drug applications that would not emerge until 1999, for example. What we find over and over again is that drug history often can predict drug future uses accurately. Good examples in the autoimmune family of diseases are two now quite old meds: Methotrexate-1949 and Cyclosporin(e)-1978. Originally developed for cancer and graft-vs-host disease, they emerged into mainstays for the autoimmune disease family and proved effective against psoriasis, eczema, arthritis, lupus, lichen planus, pemphigus, and numerous other skin diseases. The first step in such methods of network discovery "by relational possibility" is computing the central hub in the drug-disease-agent relationship. TNF or tumor necrosis factor is one agent that demonstrated "centrality" in drug-disease cause/cure maps early on and became a leading indicator of an over active immune system central to both many cancers and related autoimmune responses. For MS our system as of today would suggest that Copolymer 1(Also named Copaxone and Glatiramer Acetate), Methylprednisolone, Mitoxantrone, and some of the more potent immune suppressors would be helpful. Two weeks ago we put a BETA site online
where patients can get top down drug recommendations of the system just by entering their disease name in a Google-like search field at the top page. Currently we are restricting access to the full research interface to licensed physicians as we continue to check the data integrity of the system, but both the patient search and the physician access are free so if you want to take a look at the network maps with your doc, you can. In sum looking at possibilities for cures is how we find them, convert observation to association to correlation to causation and then to understanding of the complete mechanism of disease. So we advise all patients to take their "suspicions" to their docs and to their medical librarians and see if just maybe your insight has merit. The one discussed in this thread does. If you want to learn more:
http://www.curehunter.com/public/showTopPage.do
[FDA Disclosure: As a principal scientist at CureHunter,Inc. I have a vested interest in the success of our models and methods, but none whatsoever in any specific drug or treatment. Good luck and good hunting, be a patient activist, nobody knows what you are experiencing better than you.]
And, this is reasonable simple protocol, using well known antibiotics and one ARB.