SAN DIEGO – Heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine might not seem to have much in common with germs, but chemist Kim D. Janda, PhD, and his colleagues are trying to trick the human body into looking at them the same way: As invaders who must be conquered.
And what’s the best way to prepare the immune system for a fight? Train it through vaccination – the key to so many victories over viruses and bacteria.
For decades now, Dr. Janda, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and other scientists have tried to develop a vaccine that would blunt the effects of substances of abuse, such as illicit drugs and even tobacco. The idea is to arm the immune system with antibodies that will prevent some or all drug components from breaking through the blood-brain barrier and producing psychoactive reactions.
In a follow-up interview after his presentation at the annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Dr. Janda spoke about the history of research in this area, the potential workings of a vaccine, and the challenges of moving his own research forward.
Question: What’s the history of scientists’ efforts to develop a vaccine against drugs of abuse?
Answer: People looked at it back in the 1970s, but it didn’t really pan out. It was pretty dormant until we published research about a cocaine vaccine in 1995.
We worked on that for a while, then we looked at methamphetamine, Rohypnol, and opioids. There have been clinical trials for nicotine and cocaine, but they’ve failed.
Q: How are these vaccines expected to work?
A: The idea of the vaccines is that you don’t get high, so you won’t feel the effect of the drugs. They’ll never reach the pleasure centers that they’re supposed to.
Q: Is the idea that everyone would get a vaccine against, say, cocaine or heroin, like we routinely get vaccines against various diseases?
A: For an infectious disease like measles or mumps, you give vaccinations, and herd immunity develops. That’s not the case here. These work in a different manner, and they’re not going to be useful for people who don’t want to get off the drug. Instead, they’re going to be useful for people who want to obtain sobriety. If someone has a weak moment and tries to take the drug to get high, this would hopefully stop that from happening. It could also help overdoses in some cases, since you’re not getting that much drug into the central nervous system where it can cause cardiac arrest.
Q: How often would people be vaccinated?
A: These are vaccines that will be on board for a certain amount of time. We envision 3-4 shots over a 3-month period. You’d come back once a month for 3 months, and you’d be good for maybe 4-6 months.
Q: Where does your research stand now?
A: We’ve made a lot of advances with the opioids, and they’re good enough to put a vaccine in the clinic. Money is the issue. It’s always the issue. But we have to get up to the plate and take our swings – and find if we’ll strike out or get a hit.