Pubdate: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.utsandiego.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area. Author: Bradley Fikes $1.6M GRANT AWARDED FOR HEROIN VACCINE STUDY The federal government has awarded a $1.6 million grant to scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla for preclinical studies of a potential vaccine against heroin. The two-year grant from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse will fund advanced work on the experimental vaccine, Kim Janda, leader of the project, said Thursday. The vaccine was first developed by Janda and some colleagues at the institute in 2013. The vaccine has been demonstrated in mouse models to be safe and effective, Janda said. It causes the body's immune system to make antibodies that bind to the drug, preventing it from causing a high. If that high is blocked, heroin addicts will presumably be less prone to relapse. Janda said the vaccine needs to be optimized, and that process will be undertaken with colleagues from Virginia Commonwealth University and Molecular Express, a Compton-based company. The testing in mice will be repeated in primates, which provide a closer model to human biology. "It's been something lacking in the past; people just skirted this issue. They went right from rodents to humans, and I think that's a mistake," Janda said. The primate study will show whether the vaccine works in the same way that it does in rodents, he said. Researchers will examine how the antibodies are made, and then perform behavioral tests. Janda said if the results in primates are comparable to those in mice, researchers will have a clear path to designing a human clinical trial. If not, the vaccine concept will have to be re-examined. Janda said the study will also examine the making of a vaccine to safeguard against abusing two synthetic opioids, hydrocodone and oxycodone. And he's considering making a 3-in-1 vaccine. Heroin addicts may get hooked on these other opioids when the heroin they buy is "cut" with these other drugs, he said. Overall, Janda also has studied possible vaccines against other drugs, namely cocaine and nicotine. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom