Other researchers recently reported progress toward creating inverse vaccines, which might one day serve as a revolutionary treatment for autoimmune diseases. Pioneers like Stephen Miller, Bana Jabri and Jeffrey Hubbell rank among the very best in this growing frontier. They attempt to retrain the immune system to know the difference between what is harmful and what is harmless. These advances will help open the door to safer, more effective therapies. They’d be able to create less generalized treatments for things like type one diabetes, celiac disease and many allergies.
Take heart—twenty years ago, one of the field’s foremost researchers, Dr. Today, though, he is all in on their potential. But thanks to recent breakthroughs in immunology, his outlook has been flipped upside down. “Twenty years ago, I would have told you this wasn’t possible, absolutely not,” Miller stated. “Today, I can say that it will happen. No doubt.”
Inverse vaccines function by re-educating the immune system, teaching it not to attack the body’s own tissues. This method is different from conventional vaccines designed to provoke an immune reaction towards disease-causing agents. As Miller explains, “We want to use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to treat these diseases.” The objective is to develop drugs that are safer, more targeted and more efficacious, with fewer side effects.
Bana Jabri, another prominent figure in this research area, points out that it remains unclear whether current inverse immune treatments can impact both types of immune cells involved in autoimmune responses. “It’s not yet clear that current inverse immune treatments can affect both kinds of cells,” Jabri remarked. She estimates it’ll be roughly a decade before they really learn how to harness the potential of inverse vaccines.
More recent research suggests that at least six inverse vaccines are in or soon to enter phase two clinical trials. Most remarkably, Anokion recently reported on encouraging early human clinical trials in subjects afflicted with celiac disease and multiple sclerosis (MS). These advances are encouraging for patients who are looking for safe and effective treatments.
Jeffrey Hubbell and his UW colleagues have consistently been at the cutting edge of this promising new field. Along the way, they published a peer-reviewed paper in Nature showing that their approach was able to stop the mouse version of multiple sclerosis in its tracks. Their findings in Science Translational Medicine were the first to show that an inverse vaccine can protect allergic mice. This vaccine protects them from antigens related to household dust mites and the white part of chicken eggs.
In a joint project, Miller and Shea performed a pilot study on mice with peanut allergies. Shea noted the success of their approach: “We were able to basically convince the immune system that these proteins are not dangerous.” This research does not stop with allergies. With the success of these first strategies in hand, researchers are eager to apply these strategies to tackle other autoimmune diseases.
As radical as Stephen Miller’s 2021 paper was, it blazed new trails. It was the first to demonstrate that inverse vaccines could truly be efficacious in humans. Together, the results have drawn major interest and investment to this exciting new area of research. Some scientists predict that the first inverse vaccines could be available for use within three to five years, pending successful clinical trials and regulatory approvals.
Santamaria has spent most of his adult life learning about type one diabetes. His expertise is critical as other investigators look to harness the power of inverse vaccines to treat other autoimmune diseases. He hopes that once they get approval for one indication, it could speed things up for getting approval on other applications.
Though the idea of inverse vaccines is thrilling, there remains important questions regarding what they will mean for patient care in the long run. As discussed by Hubbell, these vaccines possess a unique capability: “It has a memory, and that memory lasts.” This memory allows the immune system to identify which proteins are non-threatening. As a result, it increases the likelihood of autoimmune reactions occurring.
It’s early days yet, as research moves forward experts are hopeful, if reticent, about the prospects for inverse vaccines. In advance of today’s roundtable discussion, Jabri’s review of inverse vaccine efforts have opened up a discussion of the critical challenges and opportunities that these innovative treatments afford.