This therapeutic vaccine treats Lewy body diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, by clearing misfolded protein aggregates utilizing a patient's own immune system. An estimated 1.4 million people in the U.S. suffer from Lewy body dementia, making it the second most frequent form of degenerative dementia in the country. However, Lewy body diseases often go misdiagnosed until patients present symptoms associated with moderate or severe stages of the disease. Incorrectly prescribed medications due to misdiagnosis further worsens the disease state, potentially resulting in death. Available treatments for Lewy body diseases include a peptide-based vaccine under clinical trial investigation. However, the use of peptide and related antibody-inducing vaccines runs the risk of prompting an auto-immune response in the patient. Other treatment options for these diseases provide only symptomatic relief that wears off as the disease progresses and does nothing to prevent further neurodegeneration. Researchers at the University of Florida have developed an adoptive cellular therapy vaccine that makes use of the patient’s own cellular immunity to reduce the misfolded protein aggregates characteristic of Lewy body diseases, providing treatment by inhibiting future neurodegeneration. Since this vaccine does not involve the use of antibodies, the chance of patients experiencing an auto-immune response decreases.
Adoptive cellular therapy vaccine that treats Lewy body diseases with lessened risk of auto-immune response
This adoptive cellular therapy involves taking T cells from the patient’s body, exposing them to an alpha-synuclein mutant antigen, and administering the T cells back into the patient’s body. This grants the patient’s immune system the ability to specifically target cells containing the misfolded alpha-synuclein aggregates and clear them from the body, preventing accumulation of the mutant proteins.
