Waiting for approval from FDA for Cocaine Vaccine Trials.

[Guest guest]

I thought this was interesting.What do you think?Lori-love that baby

Brendon.

Tue Jan 1, 10:38 PM ET

HOUSTON - Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston are

working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever

medication to treat people hooked on the drug. " For people who have a

desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful, " said Dr.

Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being assisted in the

research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. " At

some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but

those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get high and will lose

interest. "

The vaccine, currently in clinical trials, stimulates the immune

system to attack the real thing when it's taken.

The immune system — unable to recognize cocaine and other drug

molecules because they are so small — can't make antibodies to attack

them.

To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached

inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.

In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the

combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked

drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and

prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate

the highs that are so addictive.

" It's a very clever idea, " says Eagleman, a Baylor

neuroscientist. " Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring

out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack

the system. It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once

they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that. "

Kosten asked the Food and Drug Administration in December to green-

light a multi-institutional trial to begin in the spring and is

awaiting a response.

Approval would mark a breakthrough in the treatment of cocaine

addiction, which now mostly involves psychiatric counseling and 12-

step programs. It presumably would be the final clinical hurdle

before the vaccine — more than a decade in the making — might be

approved for treatment. But one expert warns against expecting too

much.

" Addiction vaccines are a promising advance, but it's unlikely any

treatment in this field will work for everyone, " said Dr.

Gorelick, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug

Abuse. " Still, if they prove successful, they will give those working

in drug addiction an important option. "

___

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com