Feb 14, 2024
Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.
Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."
"This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune system and tell the immune system to develop an antibody response against a pathological toxic protein, which is endogenous. This requires special technologies to have the right immune response because you want the body to make antibodies only against the pathologic or the sick proteins, the misguided proteins, and not against the healthy proteins that are part of your body."
"We believe that this vaccine, or we prefer to speak about active immunotherapy, makes the difference between the vaccine response against exogenous factors, such as viruses, and the endogenous, misguided proteins. We believe this active immunotherapy can be used in a treatment manner or for prevention. It can be used for maintenance therapy after one of these therapies, which are becoming available now, has already been used to reduce these plaques in the brain of people. This is related to a better cognitive response. So, I think we're seeing multiple applications. Of course, the reason is the advantages of these active immunotherapies."
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