Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating illness that affects millions of people all over the world. Thankfully, a vaccine for it may finally have been found!
Many companies have been trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s for years, with none of them being successful. Now, however, a company called United Neuroscience is saying that they are close to a breakthrough.
Amazing story and potential breakthrough… #alzheimers https://t.co/f2g91ayMZx
— Walter Hoffman (@wlhoffman1) June 26, 2019
It has already been confirmed that the effects of Alzheimer’s are caused by two proteins called beta-amyloid and tau. Though both of these proteins are crucial to supply food to brain cells, both proteins when damaged form into clumps called plaque, which accumulate in neurons and around nerve cells, disrupting cell communication, metabolism, and repair and blocking the flow of food. United Neuroscience just conducted a clinical trial that showed that 96% of patients responded to their new Alzheimer’s vaccine, known as UB-311, without serious side effects.
Not only did the patients in the trial show improved brain function, they also showed a reduction in the protein plaque gumming up their neurons.
“We are doing better than the placebo on all these things,” said United Neuroscience CEO Mei Mei Hu. “We can’t make any claims yet, but we’re pointing in all the right directions.”
After the success of their phase II trial, the company is currently beginning their third phase of trials for the vaccine.
The vaccine was developed by Chang Yi Wang, Hu’s mother, who is considered a legend in the immunology and biochemistry field. The vaccine, which is fully synthetic, combines an imitation of a common disease with a specific sequence of amino acids that are present only in the damaged beta-amyloid protein, and absent in the healthy form. This then provokes an antibody response, which clears the tangled proteins away without provoking potentially damaging inflammation.
“We were able to generate some antibodies in all patients, which is unusual for vaccines,” Wang explained of the successful trial. “We’re talking about almost a 100% response rate.”
We can only hope that this vaccine continues to be successful! Hopefully, in the coming years, Alzheimer’s will be a thing of the past.
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