What is
reverse vaccine?
Unlike normal vaccines, which train the immune system to destroy a
certain kind of cell, this treatment instead suppresses immune cells to keep
them from doing the same thing. A "reverse vaccine" that
targets the cells that attack insulin producers seems to have passed its first
test in humans.
Reverse
Vaccine - A cure for Type - 1 Diabetes????
Mechanism of Type
1 Diabetes:
The underlying pathology of type-1 diabetes is very complex
and remains poorly understood. This is mainly because the disease occurs in an
inaccessible organ, the pancreas, in patients who usually can go on to live a
long and productive life. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system
typically attacks insulin-producing cells for reasons scientists still don't
quite understand.
The only available therapy for this at the moment is to
administer insulin either by injection or via a pump on a daily basis for the
rest of the patient’s life.
Many
patients with type-1 diabetes display a common feature: they generate antibodies
to certain beta-cell proteins which circulate in the bloodstream. Among these
antibodies are those that attack insulin itself. These often appear early in
the course of the illness in young children.
How scientists worked
to solve Type 1 Diabetes?
So
the researchers tested the idea that they could induce a tolerance to insulin
by injecting a specially engineered DNA molecule into patients. This molecule
carries the code to produce insulin’s precursor, proinsulin, directly inside
the muscles of patients.
This would mean that rather than acting as an alternative supply
of the hormone, the DNA would allow proinsulin to be produced and to influence
the immune system. This could then raise the patient’s tolerance so that the
immune cells that kill off the beta cells in the pancreas might be either reduced
or eliminated.
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