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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?"
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.
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.
Your comment has been tagged as Funny. I hope that is how you intended it to be (and the title suggests that you did), because otherwise you are being totally ignorant and offensive. I have a loved one who is suffering from MS. She hasn't done anything to 'deserve it'. It isn't caused by having loose morals. Its effects, however, are devastating. Her life and my own, as well as the lives of many members of our family, have been changed as a result of the disease. Our home has had to be modified so that she can live on a single level, our plans for the future have been destroyed as she is unable to do the everyday things that we had planned to do, and her daily life is very much affected by the limitations that are brought on by the disease. To her, a visit to the local shops is a difficult adventure, to travel further afield might sometimes be impossible, to sit in the garden and look at the flowers can be the most exciting thing to occur in her day, to do some housework presents her with challenges that you and I cannot imagine. Personally, I find it hard to view such things as 'Funny'. Enjoy your laugh, I will not begrudge you that, but I hope that there is some light at the end of our tunnel as a result of the research that is described in the article.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
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!
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.
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...
Multiple Sclerosis = Multiple areas of scarring in the CNS (Brain, Spinal Cord, Optic Nerves)
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).
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