Undoubtedly, one of the greatest medical science discoveries of all time is the vaccine. Currently, scientists are working to advance vaccination technology to offer protection against neurodegenerative conditions like dementia. In this Special Feature, we questioned experts about what research is presently being done, how a dementia vaccine would function, and when one would be made accessible to the general public.

Dementia is a general term for a variety of mental health conditions that alter how the brain functions, leading to symptoms like memory loss, behavioural abnormalities, and communication difficulties. dependable source and movement.

Alzheimer's disease is the most prevalent type of dementia, making up about 60% to 80% of all cases.

Dementia affects more than 55 million individuals worldwide, and an additional 10 million cases are reported each year.

Drugs for Alzheimer's disease that have received FDA approval attempt to either slow the illness's progression or at least lessen some of its symptoms. The majority of dementia cases and Alzheimer's disease, however, are now incurable.

Is a vaccination for dementia even conceivable?

A vaccine against dementia may one day prevent dementia in certain people, according to researchers.

Traditional vaccines, including those for the flu and shingles, hone the immune system's ability to combat particular viral illnesses.

"There's an appreciation of the immune system being relevant in the central nervous system, both in terms of driving a disease state, but also potentially recovering from or even preventing a disease from happening," said Dr David A. Merrill, a psychiatrist and the director of the Pacific Neuroscience Institute's Pacific Brain Health Center at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

He cited recent research demonstrating that getting vaccinated against the flu or pneumonia may lower a person's risk of acquiring dementia as an example.

Dr Merrill stated, "It's raising the question of whether immune system activation or support could assist fend off the dementing process or nerve degenerative disease process.

"The theories or hypotheses concerning Alzheimer's did not begin with concepts about the immune system, but it is ultimately thought that potentially the treatments can and should involve assisting or addressing immune system function with age," he informed us.

The effects of a dementia vaccine

Dr Michael G. Agadjanyan, vice president and professor of immunology at The Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California, claims that recombinant vaccines that use DNA technology to raise antibodies against the most immunogenic peptide segments are the most effective at preventing neurodegenerative diseases.

Over 100 potential medicines are currently being evaluated at various stages of the research process, and many more are being developed, according to Dr Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific affairs for the Alzheimer's Association.

She explained that some study has looked at using vaccines and other forms of active immunisation to "protect" people from Alzheimer's. These vaccines are being created to focus on the biology associated with Alzheimer's.

In some instances, they are utilizing biology from years of vaccine-related work more widely in medical care. Additionally, there are several delivery methods and biological systems that may be targeted by vaccination for potential therapy, according to the expert.

According to Dr Agadjanyan, dementia vaccines would trigger immunological reactions against pathogenic substances in the body linked to dementia, such as:

beta-amyloid

Trusted Source proteins: Alzheimer's disease is frequently associated with a toxic buildup of these proteins in the brain.
An aberrant tangle of the tau protein in the brain is linked to Alzheimer's disease; tau helps regulate the internal structure of neurons in the brain.
alpha-synuclein
a protein in neurons that, when it builds up in high quantities, is linked to Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease Trusted Source.
According to Dr Agadjanyan, the following processes manifest in the brain tissues of Alzheimer's disease.

Beta-amyloid protein is what causes [beta-amyloid] plaques to form. Neurofibrillary tangles are made of hyperphosphorylated tau protein inside the brain's neurons. According to him, these beta-amyloid and tau protein buildups result in the degeneration of neurons and the emergence of inflammatory processes.

"As a result, neurons and the connections between them disappear, and memories, the capacity to produce them, and other human cognitive functions—thinking, the capacity for sustained attention, logic, etc.—go with them," he added. "A person with Alzheimer's disease rarely lives longer than five to seven years after receiving the diagnosis."

According to Dr Agadjanyan, current scientific evidence indicates that beta-amyloid aggregation is the crucial factor for starting Alzheimer's disease, which is followed by the buildup of pathogenic tau and, later, inflammation, oxidative stress, and neurodegeneration.

Development of dementia vaccines

Several dementia vaccines are presently undergoing various stages of clinical studies to examine their efficacy and security, including:

• In November 2021, a nasal Alzheimer's disease vaccine from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston entered the phase 1 clinical trial stage.
•  A phase 2 clinical study for an Alzheimer's disease vaccine from Araclon Biotech that targets beta-amyloid 40 is now ongoing.
• A phase 1B/ 2A clinical trial for a tau-targeted vaccination against Alzheimer's disease is being conducted by the Swiss biopharmaceutical company AC Immune SA.

The pharmaceutical company Vaxxinity declared earlier this year that their immunotherapeutic vaccination for Alzheimer's disease has been granted FDA fast-track designation as a trusted Source. Clinical studies for the vaccine candidate UB-311 have finished phases 1 and 2A, and phase 2B is scheduled to start in late 2022.

According to Dr Snyder, an early-phase clinical trial exploring the utility of vaccination in lowering brain inflammation in people with early Alzheimer's disease is now being funded by the Alzheimer's Association's Part the Cloud initiative. She said that the trial's conclusion is anticipated for the fall of 2023.

Additionally, Dr Agadjanyan is a member of a team at The Institute for Molecular Medicine (IMM) that is working on an Alzheimer's disease vaccine.

To prevent or delay the start of Alzheimer's disease, he said, "our goal was to design an immunogenic vaccination that can induce a sufficient level of antibodies in the peripheral of all immunized cognitively unimpaired old with immunosenescence."

Based on the universal platform technology MultiTEP, which we created at IMM, we have created a special kind of vaccination. This platform activates B cells to make antibodies at a considerably higher rate — up to 10 times — than vaccines currently used in clinical trials. It does this by stimulating memory and naive T helper cellsTrusted Source. The intention is to stop or at least delay the start of the disease by preventing/suppressing [beta-amyloid] and/or tau aggregation with a significant quantity of generated antibodies.

Michael G. Agadjanyan, M.D.

When will a vaccination for dementia be accessible?

It will take some time before any immunizations are made accessible to the general public, according to Dr Merrill.

He noted that "any vaccine will still take several years to be able to pass through the development process, the regulatory barriers, [and] the phases of clinical testing."

The research conducted thus far, according to Dr Snyder, has either been very tiny or in mice.

Before commenting on the possible value of a vaccine for preventing or treating Alzheimer's, she suggested that further study be conducted in sizable, diverse human populations.

In addition, Dr Merrill noted that depending on how long the vaccination procedure may take, people might be wary of a dementia vaccine.

The schedule or dose of the vaccines can be extremely different, he explained, "if you look at the early-stage trials." "In theory, you may think that a single dose of a vaccine would provide protection, but in practice, it might need a series. One plan calls for monthly vaccinations for a full year.

How interested will people be in purchasing this, then, is the question? asked Dr Merrill. People would line up and be very interested if it genuinely shields and keeps you from acquiring Alzheimer's. However, everything depends on how this develops; this is the unknown part.

Do vaccines for dementia work?

Dr Karl Herrup, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is on the other side of the debate over the dementia vaccine.

He told MNT. All dementia vaccines are founded on the idea that deposits of misfolded proteins, including amyloid, tau, and others, are the disease's primary causes and aim to employ the immune system's power to combat dementia's biology.

The vaccines all rely on utilizing antibodies to the deposits to decrease and/or remove them, he said, even though their methodologies vary.

"The bad news is that there is no appreciable clinical benefit to the medicines despite this biochemical achievement. In several experiments, participants taking the medicine performed worse than those taking a placebo. The idea of aggregate-caused dementia relies on questionable grounds, according to many of us, myself included, stated Dr Herrup.

Dr Herrup continued, "The results were a severe disappointment for us." "The results were not surprising, but I would rather be wrong and have a meaningful Alzheimer's disease therapy than to be right and have to continue to see millions of people suffer."

Whether a dementia vaccine or treatment, for that matter, delays or stops the clinical symptoms of the disease—cognitive decline and behavioural abnormalities—is the sole crucial question, according to Dr Herrup.

He went on to say, "I predict that none of these medicines will materially affect the course of the disease. "Unfortunately, it will be years before any significant cures are available because the industry invested the majority of its resources in these approaches, disregarding or occasionally suppressing other areas of inquiry. The most effective methods right now are non-pharmacological.