Heroin addiction cure in the making.

[Rod1]

The researchers of The Scripps Research Institute announced a vaccine that has the effect of blocking the high from heroin. The story below:

By Mika Ono

Scientists Create Vaccine Against Heroin High
Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have developed a highly successful vaccine against a heroin high and have proven its therapeutic potential in animal models.

The new study, published recently online ahead of print by the American Chemical Society's Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, demonstrates how a novel vaccine produces antibodies (a kind of immune molecule) that stop not only heroin but also other psychoactive compounds metabolized from heroin from reaching the brain to produce euphoric effects.

"In my 25 years of making drug-of-abuse vaccines, I haven't seen such a strong immune response as I have with what we term a dynamic anti-heroin vaccine," said the study's principal investigator, Kim D. Janda, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Chair in Chemistry and a member of The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. "It is just extremely effective. The hope is that such a protective vaccine will be an effective therapeutic option for those trying to break their addiction to heroin."

"We saw a very robust and specific response from this heroin vaccine," said George F. Koob, chair of the Scripps Research Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders and a co-author of the new study. "I think a humanized version could be of real help to those who need and want it."

A Worldwide Epidemic

While injection drug abuse is a debilitating worldwide epidemic, heroin abuse and addiction are especially destructive, with costs estimated at $22 billion in the United States due to loss of productivity, criminal activity, medical care, and social welfare, the authors say in their study.

Heroin abuse and addiction are also driving forces in the spread of HIV through needle sharing.

Using an approach termed "immunopharmacotherapy," Janda and his Scripps Research colleagues previously created vaccines that used immune molecules to blunt the effects of other abused drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and nicotine. Human clinical trials are under way for the cocaine and nicotine vaccines.

Attempts by other researchers over the past four decades to create a clinically viable heroin vaccine, however, have fallen short, in part due to the fact that heroin is an elusive target metabolized into multiple substances each producing psychoactive effects.

An Innovative Approach

To overcome this problem, in the new study the Scripps Research team used a "dynamic" approach, targeting not only heroin itself, but also the chemical it quickly degrades into, 6-acetylmorphine (6AM), and morphine.

"Heroin is lipophilic and is rapidly degraded to 6AM," said G. Neil Stowe, a research associate in Janda's laboratory who is first author of the new study. "Both readily cross the blood-brain barrier and gain access to the opioid receptors in the brain."

The researchers linked a heroin-like hapten (a small molecule that elicits an immune response) to a generic carrier protein called keyhole limpet hemocyanin or KLH, and mixed it with Alum, an adjuvant (vaccine additive), to create a vaccine "cocktail." This mixture slowly degraded in the body, exposing the immune system to different psychoactive metabolites of heroin such as 6AM and morphine.

"Critically, the vaccine produces antibodies to a constantly changing drug target," said Stowe. "Such an approach has never before been engaged with drug-of-abuse vaccines."

To compare the results of a non-dynamic approach, the team also prepared a vaccine simply targeting morphine, a substance related to heroin. Both vaccines were then injected into rats and the effects were examined in Koob's laboratory.

Promising Results

The results showed that the rats rapidly generated robust polyclonal antibodies in response to the dynamic heroin vaccine.

In addition, the study found that addicted rats were less likely to "self-administer" heroin by pressing on a lever after several booster shots of the vaccine. Only three of the seven rats that received the heroin vaccine self-administered heroin. In contrast, all of the control rats, including those given the morphine vaccine, self-administered the drug.

The effect of the heroin vaccine "was very dramatic; as dramatic as we have ever seen with in experiments of this kind," said Koob. "To have an animal vaccinated and not show a response to heroin is pretty amazing."

The team also found that the heroin vaccine was highly specific, meaning that it only produced an antibody response to heroin and 6AM, and not to the other opioid-related drugs tested, such as oxycodone as well as drugs used for opioid dependence—methadone, naltrexone, and naloxone. "The importance of this," said Janda, "is that it indicates these vaccines could be used in combination with other heroin rehabilitation therapies."

The Scripps Research team has recently begun an exciting collaboration with researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to see if it is feasible to develop a dual-purpose vaccine against HIV and for the treatment of heroin addiction in a single shot, Janda said.

In addition to Janda, Koob, and Stowe, co-authors of the paper, "A Vaccine Strategy that Induces Protective Immunity Against Heroin," include Alexander V. Mayorov and Joseph S. Zakhari from the Janda laboratory at Scripps Research; Leandro F. Vendruscolo, Scott Edwards, Joel E. Schlosburg, and Kaushik K. Misra from the Koob laboratory at Scripps Research; and Gery Schulteis from the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of California, San Diego. For more information, see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jm200461m .

The study was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jm200461m

@El Chapo

 

[Rod1]

This is just for heroin, so Big Pharma market is safe for the moment.

 

[Pwent]

That's cool if true, but it seems that it blocks the high, which we can do by physically preventing the heroine in rehab or similar

I think the more effective "vaccine" would be something to block the withdrawals, thats what drives people back or to other drugs that reduce the suffering. I.e. Get piss drunk so you don't feel the withdrawal as bad

 

[Offended]

Blocking the high, just let the junkies od. Best for all.

 

[snakedafunky]

The researchers of The Scripps Research Institute announced a vaccine that has the effect of blocking the high from heroin.

That is not a cure, that's taking away the only good thing from heroin.
I thought they found a way to make Heroin healthy and not addictive so you can shoot up whenever you like without any negative consequences whatsoever.
That's what I would call a cure.

 

[BEER]

That's cool if true, but it seems that it blocks the high, which we can do by physically preventing the heroine in rehab or similar

I think the more effective "vaccine" would be something to block the withdrawals, thats what drives people back or to other drugs that reduce the suffering. I.e. Get piss drunk so you don't feel the withdrawal as bad

Yeah, I don't think junkies would be happy to shoot up and nothing happen.

Blocking withdrawal would be much more impressive. People would be less likely to fall into cycles of abuse if they could get high, and not have the overbearing need to do it again 12 hours later.

 

[Rod1]

The researchers of The Scripps Research Institute announced a vaccine that has the effect of blocking the high from heroin.

That is not a cure, that's taking away the only good thing from heroin.
I thought they found a way to make Heroin healthy and not addictive so you can shoot up whenever you like without any negative consequences whatsoever.
That's what I would call a cure.

To my understanding the high and the withdrawal is the same, without a high, there can be no dependance.

 

[ripskater]

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jm200461m

@El Chapo

If you're addicted, and heroine no longer works, don't they just try to find another drug to get high on?

How much does this help anything in your opinion Rod?

 

[Rod1]

If you're addicted, and heroine no longer works, don't they just try to find another drug to get high on?

How much does this help anything in your opinion Rod?

Becuase heroin is one of the most destructive drugs out there?

 

[Pwent]

Yeah, I don't think junkies would be happy to shoot up and nothing happen.

Blocking withdrawal would be much more impressive. People would be less likely to fall into cycles of abuse if they could get high, and not have the overbearing need to do it again 12 hours later.

Well even if they don't shoot up heroine, they're going to take whatever they can get their hands on that will help with the suffering of withdrawal

 

[Rod1]

Yeah, I don't think junkies would be happy to shoot up and nothing happen.

Blocking withdrawal would be much more impressive. People would be less likely to fall into cycles of abuse if they could get high, and not have the overbearing need to do it again 12 hours later.

If the body cant get high, then it cant build a dependence on it

 

[BEER]

Well even if they don't shoot up heroine, they're going to take whatever they can get their hands on that will help with the suffering of withdrawal

For sure. Which is why finding a way to mitigate that suffering would be more impressive than simply denying them a high.

 

[ripskater]

Becuase heroin is one of the most destructive drugs out there?

Ok. That is good.

But I think they go to something else right away. Which if it's not as bad, then it's a good thing maybe?

 

[BEER]

If the body cant get high, then it cant build a dependence on it

I'm not sure if the physiology of drug use works that way, but even if so, that would only be helpful to people who have decided to try heroin for the first time.

Those with a dependence (which goes far beyond a simply physical addiction) would not be helped, and potentially harmed further by this sort of thing.

 

[Rod1]

Well even if they don't shoot up heroine, they're going to take whatever they can get their hands on that will help with the suffering of withdrawal

 

[snakedafunky]

To my understanding the high and the withdrawal is the same, without a high, there can be no dependance.

Yeah, I am no expert but I also think that's how it works.
I mean while I would prefer to be able to shoot up heroin with any negative consequences.

On a serious note if this turns out to work in the real world like it sounds it will.
That is definitely a significant medical development.

I am wondering if the government will force addicts to get vaccinated?
Probably a jail or vaccination type of deal.

 

[Rod1]

I'm not sure if the physiology of drug use works that way, but even if so, that would only be helpful to people who have decided to try heroin for the first time.

Those with a dependence (which goes far beyond a simply physical addiction) would not be helped, and potentially harmed further by this sort of thing.

They would because their bodies wont be able to process heroin at all, so they will shoot up but their brains wont react to it.

 

[ripskater]

Is that real?

 

[Rod1]

Is that real?

What? the TV show or the medicine?

 

[ripskater]

What? the TV show or the medicine?

That sign or advertisement. It's funny regardless.