The first vaccine that has been proven to be successful against any form of prion disease has been developed by researchers from the New York University Langone Medical Center at New York University School of Medicine. The vaccine eliminated a brain wasting disease in deer.
The development promises a higher level of protection for livestock from prion produced disease like Mad Cow Disease. The researchers propose that similar vaccines are now possible to combat human ailments produced by prions like Alzheimer’s disease, familial insomnia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and kuru. Prions convert healthy cells into a disease state in a class of animal and human diseases called chronic wasting disease.
A group of five deer was given an initial dose of the vaccine and follow-up doses for 11 months. A group of six deer received a placebo at the same times. Both groups of deer were exposed to brain matter that was infected with chronic wasting disease. After 11 months the deer that received the vaccine began to produce their own antibodies to the chronic wasting disease. The deer that did not receive the vaccine died of chronic wasting disease. Both groups of deer were housed together to access the transfer of the disease and the cure between animals.
Prion disease is usually transmitted to animals and people by the ingestion of food or feces that contains the prion molecule that initiates the disease. The researchers used a variant of a prion-like protein developed from Salmonella bacteria to produce the vaccine. At present the vaccine only works for captive deer populations but the researchers plan to develop similar vaccines that are applicable to cattle, swine, sheep, and humans. The discovery could be the end of one form of food poisoning that is almost always deadly.
