New Vaccine for Alzheimer's Disease Shows Potential in Mice

A preclinical study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease describes a novel vaccine for Alzheimer's disease, which uses the body's own immune cells to destroy beta-amyloid, reports Medical News Today . The research indicated effective antibody production and memory improvements in mice given the vaccine. The compound uses dendritic cells, which communicate with other immune cells to direct immune response. The dendritic cells are impregnated with a modified version of beta-amyloid so that the body can detect and destroy the actual protein. "Because we use dendritic cells to generate antibodies, this vaccine can coordinate both innate and acquired immunity to potentially overcome age-related impairments of the immune system," said the University of South Florida Health's Chuanhai Cao. In addition to the antibody response, the mice administered the vaccine exhibited symptom improvements — performing similarly to healthy mice in memory tests, for example. The vaccine also did not induce inflammation, a major concern when developing a vaccine and the key reason why researchers had to halt using a previous vaccine.