carbar
03-30-2007, 05:31 AM
Scientists in Japan have developed an oral vaccine for Alzheimer's disease that has proved effective in mice, raising hopes that a treatment can be found for the fatal condition.
Scientists at the National Institute for Longevity Sciences in central Japan said yesterday that they hoped to begin small-scale clinical trials of the oral vaccine later this year.
"We hope the phase-one trials go well," Reuters quoted Takeshi Tabira, the institute's director, as saying. "Animals are able to recover their functions after developing symptoms, but humans are less able to do so. It may be that this only works in the early stages of the disease, when symptoms are light."
The vaccine reduced the amount of amyloid plaques - believed to be the cause of Alzheimer's - and improved brain function when administered to mice that had been genetically modified to develop the disease, Mr Tabira said.
The vaccine works by stimulating the immune system to attack and destroy amyloid proteins in the brain, and the mice suffered no side effects, such as inflammation or bleeding in the brain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2046148,00.html
Scientists at the National Institute for Longevity Sciences in central Japan said yesterday that they hoped to begin small-scale clinical trials of the oral vaccine later this year.
"We hope the phase-one trials go well," Reuters quoted Takeshi Tabira, the institute's director, as saying. "Animals are able to recover their functions after developing symptoms, but humans are less able to do so. It may be that this only works in the early stages of the disease, when symptoms are light."
The vaccine reduced the amount of amyloid plaques - believed to be the cause of Alzheimer's - and improved brain function when administered to mice that had been genetically modified to develop the disease, Mr Tabira said.
The vaccine works by stimulating the immune system to attack and destroy amyloid proteins in the brain, and the mice suffered no side effects, such as inflammation or bleeding in the brain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2046148,00.html