MS vaccine testing to start in US

A US company is set to begin a trial of a vaccine which it claims halts the progress of multiple sclerosis.

PharmaFrontiers is to test its tailor-made vaccine on 100 patients with MS, after a small-scale study showed promise, New Scientist reports.

MS experts have welcomed the research but urged caution because other vaccines have not been successful.

The degenerative disease attacks the nervous system and affects 2.5m people worldwide, of which 1% die each year.

In MS, immune cells destroy the myelin sheath - a protective layer - that surrounds nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord and enables them to transmit impulses.

The vaccine being studied in the US contains inactive myelin-specific T cells - found in the immune system.

To make it, a blood sample is taken from the patient and the cells are extracted.

They are then multiplied in a lab, and treated with radiation before being re-injected into the patient.

The body's immune system then recognises these modified T cells as being damaged and attacks them, priming the body's defence system in the same way a conventionally designed vaccine would, the researchers say.

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