From the Irish Times:
“Human trials are to begin next year on the vaccine, which uses part of a common bacteria to halt the effects of these debilitating diseases. It acts by helping to re-educate the body’s immune system.
“…Auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis occur when tissues are damaged by the body’s own immune system, explained Dr Neil Williams of the University of Bristol.
“‘The immune system can go wrong and attack our own tissues,’ he said. His approach involves ‘re-educating the immune system and putting the controls back in place’.
“He has already succeeded in doing this in animal models by using a single protein from a common and harmless form of the bacterium E.coli.
“The results were quite startling, with the majority of test mice that naturally developed arthritis avoiding the disease altogether. The risk of developing arthritis fell from 80 per cent of test mice to just 15 per cent after treatment, he said.
“The bacterial protein stimulates an immune system regulator which dampens down the body’s immune response. “It seems that its function is to suppress chronic inflammatory disease,” said Dr Williams. The regulator was able to shut down the arthritic inflammation being produced by the immune system.”
Also mentioned: a vaccine against prostate cancer, presently in effectiveness trials, and a report of progress in vaccines against cocaine and nicotine addiction.
