Can a new "inverse vaccine” reverse autoimmune disease?

Although autoimmune diseases are estimated to affect over 20 million Americans, there remains to be no cure. Current treatments tend to rely on immunosuppressants that indiscriminately shut down the immune system and can come with significant side effects.

Recently, researchers at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have developed an "inverse vaccine" that was able to reverse autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes in a lab setting, without shutting down the entire immune system.

Traditional vaccines work by training the immune system to recognize molecules that resemble those on the surface of a virus or bacteria. These molecules, called antigens, then trigger an immune response to attack the virus or bacteria. In the case of autoimmunity, the immune system mistakenly recognizes its own cells as antigens and triggers an attack on the body's own cells.

In contrast, the inverse vaccine works by erasing the immune system's memory of a particular antigen. This technology takes advantage of the liver's function to mark the body's broken-down cells with "do not attack" signals, which prevents autoimmune reactions to cells that naturally die within the body. Researchers in this case tagged an autoimmune antigen with a molecule that resembled an aged cell, called N-acetylgalactosamine (pGal), so that the tagged compound would pass through the liver and be marked with "do not attack" signals.

The inverse vaccine's effectiveness has already been tested in preclinical settings. Phase I safety trials have been conducted in individuals with celiac disease and are also underway for patients with multiple sclerosis. The development of clinically approved inverse vaccines is still in progress, but this technology holds significant promise for the future of autoimmune disease treatment.

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