San Diego scientists say they are moving forward with trials of a vaccine that may block the high of heroine. Animal -- they given immunity to the intoxicating effects of the drug. If it works in humans, it could become a powerful tool to help people recover from heroine addiction. Joining me is reporter David Wagner. Vaccines for things like the flu make it less likely that we are going to get sick. What does it mean to be vaccinated against a drug? If this is proven to work in humans which they expect it will be it would basically make heroine ineffective so it would mean that users could go out there and take her went but knock it high from it. The way this is work is the immune system would be trained to neutralize a drug before it was able to enter the brain and get them high. So the vaccine would not take away the motivation that addicts have for taking the drug but it would take away the reward that they get. So the conventional vaccines expose patients to weaken forms of the bacteria and build up their immune system. Does this work in a similar way? It does but different. The vaccines that we are used to thinking about rely on the body's natural immune response. So they will expose you to a low dose of a pathogen so later your immune system can say I'm familiar with this and I know how to deal with it. With a drug like Aravind the body does it naturally have a immune response what so they had a figure out figured out the right target for her went. I interviewed the scientists leading this effort at the Scripps research Institute and here's how he put it. What we've done is trained it to recognize her when as a foreign substance so when it is introduced into the body, the immune system is alerted and recognize and Nichols after heroine and blocks it before it gets to the brain where it inflicts the properties. So the vaccine will take the high away from heroine but couldn't that be dangerous because you would have an addict who is seeking to get high but they don't because they are taking the vaccine so they seek out a higher potentially lethal dose? Yes, there is concern about addicts trying to get around the vaccine. Heroine is not the only opiate out there that people are abusing these days and this does not block other kinds of opiates. The bigger point that they would make is that this is a vaccine that you would give to people that are motivated to stop using. This would be a tool that you would use on people that are actively trying to recover from addiction. You would not just go around giving this to everyone currently using heroine this would be something that you would use for people that have motivation to want to stop using and this would basically just give them that safety net to know that if they did give into the temptation to relapse they wouldn't get that reward. So let's hear from Kim Janda. The ideal will be to use this for people who want to undergo sensation for heroine abuse. Typically an addict will relapse. So we feel that the vaccine would be most useful in conjunction with therapy of people trying to stop taking the drug. How long does it last. We don't know in humans yet. The news this week is that this vaccine and they found that eight months after vaccinating the monkeys they were still not getting high from heroine. It was long-lasting and that has some concern amongst researchers. Will these vaccines provide long-term protection to get people off the drug. So you did speak with researchers that were not a part of this study. What did they say about the potential impact? They highlighted the study does represent a step toward for this research. Just the fact that they were able to get this to work so well and monkeys and get the immune system to kick in. They said it was a significant development that went well with developing vaccines for heroine and maybe other types of drugs. They also noted that there are pros and cons to the design of this vaccine. Because it only works against heroine, you could look at this in a positive way in that it won't stop something like methadone from working. That is often use to wean addicts off of heroine. It is good that they can still use that. Also doesn't block prescription pain drugs so if somebody needs to use prescription pain drugs for a legitimate reason that will still work. On the con side of the equation, does it work and things like that no -- or opioids that we see people turn to. The researchers say they are aware of this limitation and that they are going to work to develop newer versions of the vaccine that might also protect against things. When could we see a clinical trials start for humans? I asked him not in its unclear right now. This is not going to be something that is available next week. The next steps are going to be very expensive putting this out in trials in humans. It is something that he's looking to partner with a company to do. He says he's talking to a company to do that development. He couldn't say which company. I asked him for a time frame and he said he hopes to get it done before he retires but this is expensive and going to take a lot of time. It is not something that you are going to see used widely next year. I've been speaking with David Wagner. Thank you. Thank you.
San Diego scientists say they are closer than ever to developing what could be a powerful weapon in the fight against opiate addiction: a vaccine that blocks the high users get from heroin.
In a recently published study, researchers led by Scripps Research Institute professor Kim Janda report that their vaccine was able to safely and effectively give four rhesus monkeys immunity to the intoxicating effects of heroin.
"We believe this vaccine candidate will prove safe for human trials," Janda said in a Scripps press release.
Vaccination could help recovering addicts avoid relapse, the scientists say. Without the possibility of getting high, they say, the motivation to seek out heroin would be eliminated.
The study shows that the vaccine's effects can be long-lasting. Eight months after vaccination, the monkeys continued to show signs of resistance to heroin's high.
The vaccine works by conscripting the body's immune system, teaching it to recognize heroin molecules and deploy antibodies to neutralize them before they reach the brain.
The research builds on previous studies in mice. The scientists said this is the first time a heroin vaccine has successfully passed trials in primates.
Gavril Pasternak, an opioid researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who was not involved in the study, told KPBS via email that the vaccine's design — which singles out heroin but not other opiates — has benefits and limitations.
"The subject would still be able to be treated for pain with alternative drugs, if needed," Pasternak said.
"However, this also means that a subject might bypass the protection of the vaccine by abusing opioids with different structures. This becomes an issue today with the increasing availability of fentanyl and related opioids," Pasternak said.
University of Florida opioid researcher Oliver Grundmann said the study builds on previous attempts at creating a heroin vaccine by identifying the right target for eliciting an immune response.
Grundmann said via email, "If the heroin vaccine concept is feasible and a proof-of-concept in small clinical trials shows positive results then this may provide a blueprint for other vaccines against drugs of abuse," including cocaine.
The Scripps researchers said their next step will be to work with an outside company to put their heroin vaccine into human clinical trials.
