A futuristic vaccine to prevent Alzheimer’s disease is in the works right here in Southern California. And it won’t even involve needles.
Researcher Michael Agadjanyan at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, along with David Sultzer from UCI MIND and Lon Schneider from USC, received a $12 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to support clinical trials aiming to keep “the long goodbye” at bay.
Six sites across the nation are hosting the Phase 1 trial that they designed, including the Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian’s Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute in Newport Beach. The vaccine and its monthly booster will be administered to people early in the disease not by needle injection, but by pressure pushing it into the skin. The hope is to spur the immune system to action to block the buildup of harmful material in the brain, and/or to clean it up.
“These are clever new developments that take advantage of all these advances in technology and in our understanding of the disease,” Sultzer said. “The idea of being able to prevent, with a vaccine, people from getting Alzheimer’s — that’s a powerful opportunity.”
Dr. Gus Alva, principal investigator at Hoag, agrees. “This is probably as exciting as it gets,” he said. “Everything about this trial is groundbreaking — a vaccine that might actually help prevent the condition, rather than allowing it to set in and then trying to treat it.”
Forty-eight volunteers aged 60 to 85 with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease are sought for the trial, which is also underway in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey.
Hoag is the only trial site in California. It’s hoping to enroll about a dozen people. For more information, call 949-764-6797 or email [email protected].
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Alzheimer’s is characterized by abnormal deposits of proteins throughout the brain, impairing the function of once-healthy neurons. It’s the No. 3 cause…
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