This appears to do it. The protocol been contemplated can also be
used to vaccinate children to block nicotine addiction.
What happens is that the capacity is inserted into the appropriate
liver cells to churn out antibodies that go looking for nicotine.
This intercepts the problem before it gets to the brain.
I suspect it is not a magic bullet for the addicted as there is also
the problem of managing the slow withdrawal of the chemical
dependency itself. However it is certainly the natural partner for a
withdrawal program.
It also assures us that we can anticipate a hundred percent success
rate simply because it will become progressively harder to ingest
nicotine in a meaningful manner.
New Vaccine for
Nicotine Addiction
Released: 6/25/2012
1:35 PM EDT
Embargo expired: 6/27/2012 2:00 PM EDT
Weill Cornell
Researchers Develop Novel Anti-Body Vaccine that Blocks Addictive
Nicotine Chemicals from Reaching the Brain
Newswise — NEW YORK
(June 27, 2012) -- Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have
developed and successfully tested in mice an innovative vaccine to
treat nicotine addiction.
In the journal Science
Translational Medicine, the scientists describe how a single dose
of their novel vaccine protects mice, over their lifetime, against
nicotine addiction. The vaccine is designed to use the animal's
liver as a factory to continuously produce antibodies that gobble up
nicotine the moment it enters the bloodstream, preventing the
chemical from reaching the brain and even the heart.
"As far as we can
see, the best way to treat chronic nicotine addiction from smoking is
to have these Pacman-like antibodies on patrol, clearing the blood as
needed before nicotine can have any biological effect," says the
study's lead investigator, Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chairman and
professor of Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
"Our vaccine
allows the body to make its own monoclonal antibodies against
nicotine, and in that way, develop a workable immunity," Dr.
Crystal says.
Previously tested
nicotine vaccines have failed in clinical trials because they all
directly deliver nicotine antibodies, which only last a few weeks and
require repeated, expensive injections, Dr. Crystal says. Plus, this
kind of impractical, passive vaccine has had inconsistent results,
perhaps because the dose needed may be different for each person,
especially if they start smoking again, he adds.
"While we have
only tested mice to date, we are very hopeful that this kind of
vaccine strategy can finally help the millions of smokers who have
tried to stop, exhausting all the methods on the market today, but
find their nicotine addiction to be strong enough to overcome these
current approaches," he says. Studies show that between 70 and
80 percent of smokers who try to quit light up again within six
months, Dr. Crystal adds.
About 20 percent of
adult Americans smoke, and while it is the 4,000 chemicals within the
burning cigarette that causes the health problems associated with
smoking -- diseases that lead to one out of every five deaths in the
U.S. -- it is the nicotine within the tobacco that keeps the smoker
hooked.
A New Kind of Vaccine
There are, in general,
two kinds of vaccines. One is an active vaccine, like those used to
protect humans against polio, the mumps, and so on. This kind of
vaccine presents a bit of the foreign substance (a piece of virus,
for example) to the immune system, which "sees" it and
activates a lifetime immune response against the intruder. Since
nicotine is a small molecule, it is not recognized by the immune
system and cannot be built into an active vaccine.
The second type of
vaccine is a passive vaccine, which delivers readymade antibodies to
elicit an immune response. For example, the delivery of monoclonal
(identically produced) antibodies that bind on to growth factor
proteins on breast cancer cells shut down their activity.
The Weill Cornell
research team developed a new, third kind -- a genetic vaccine --
that they initially tested in mice to treat certain eye diseases and
tumor types. The team's new nicotine vaccine is based on this model.
The researchers took
the genetic sequence of an engineered nicotine antibody, created by
co-author Dr. Jim D. Janda, of The Scripps Research Institute, and
put it into an adeno-associated virus (AAV), a virus engineered to
not be harmful. They also included information that directed the
vaccine to go to hepatocytes, which are liver cells. The antibody's
genetic sequence then inserts itself into the nucleus of hepatocytes,
and these cells start to churn out a steady stream of the antibodies,
along with all the other molecules they make.
In mice studies, the
vaccine produced high levels of the antibody continuously, which the
researchers measured in the blood. They also discovered that little
of the nicotine they administered to these mice reached the brain.
Researchers tested activity of the experimental mice, treated with
both a vaccine and nicotine, and saw that it was not altered;
infrared beams in the animals' cages showed they were just as active
as before the vaccine was delivered. In contrast, mice that received
nicotine and not treated with the vaccine basically "chilled
out" -- they relaxed and their blood pressure and heart activity
were lowered -- signs that the nicotine had reached the brain and
cardiovascular system.
The researchers are
preparing to test the novel nicotine vaccine in rats and then in
primates -- steps needed before it can be tested ultimately in
humans.
Dr. Crystal says that,
if successful, such a vaccine would best be used in smokers who are
committed to quitting. "They will know if they start smoking
again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine
vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit," he says.
He adds that it might
be possible, given the complete safety of the vaccine, to use it to
preempt nicotine addiction in individuals who have never smoked, in
the same way that vaccines are used now to prevent a number of
disease-producing infections. "Just as parents decide to give
their children an HPV vaccine, they might decide to use a nicotine
vaccine. But that is only theoretically an option at this point,"
Dr. Crystal says. "We would of course have to weight benefit
versus risk, and it would take years of studies to establish such a
threshold."
"Smoking affects
a huge number of people worldwide, and there are many people who
would like to quit, but need effective help," he says. "This
novel vaccine may offer a much-needed solution."
The study was funded
by the National Institutes of Health, the National Foundation for
Cancer Research, and the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation.
The Cornell Center for
Technology Enterprise and Commercialization, on behalf of Cornell
University, has filed patent applications on the work described in
this study.
Other study co-authors
are Dr. Martin J. Hicks, Dr. Jonathan B. Rosenberg, Dr. Bishnu P. De,
Dr. Odelya Pagovich, Dr. Jian-ping Qiu, Dr. Stephen M. Kaminsky, Dr.
Neil R. Hackett, and Dr. Stefan Worgall from Weill Cornell Medical
College, and Dr. Colin N. Young and Dr. Robin L. Davisson from
Cornell University.
Weill Cornell Medical
College
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