A typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked. The new “inverse vaccine” does just the opposite: it removes the immune system’s memory of one molecule. While such immune memory erasure would be unwanted for infectious diseases, it can stop autoimmune reactions like those seen in multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, or rheumatoid arthritis, in which the immune system attacks a person’s healthy tissues.
fuckin dope
Couldn’t have said it better myself
I’ve been waiting for an advance like this for a while now. I’ve been thinking, “It’s cool that we can make the immune system attack something, adding a target to its list of targets, but imagine if we could remove things from that list, too?” Getting closer.
Crossing fingers, hoping that clinical trials get funding and are successful.
That’s be life changing for many people.
Oh man, this would be incredible. An autoimmune disease runs in my family and it would help a bunch of us.
Vaxn’t?
This one actually sounds credible. Or maybe I’m just hoping too hard for a friend.
Does anyone know a reasonable timeline, assuming everything works out (big if, I know) between something like this starting Phase I trials and widespread availability?
Are we talking a few years, or like a decade?
I guess it would be more difficult to get approval than the average treatment if it’s the first of its kind.
Also I’m not an expert in the field, and there are probably many factors that makes speculation difficult, such as funding, and does-it-work-in-humans, and funding.
Wow, I had no idea inverse vaccines were a thing. Very exciting and interesting stuff. Thanks for posting this!
