Developing a Cure for Multiple Sclerosis

Scytel Research is developing a tolerogenic therapeutic vaccine to potentially control and reverse multiple sclerosis (MS) by covalently linking a disease-specific cytokine and a myelin-specific neuro-antigen to create a recombinant fusion protein. This approach provides localized immune reaction in contrast to generalized immunosuppression that is experienced with current drug therapies for MS. The cytokine moiety not only directs the neuroantigen molecule to specific T cells but also modulates...

Scytel Research is developing a tolerogenic therapeutic vaccine to potentially control and reverse multiple sclerosis (MS) by covalently linking a disease-specific cytokine and a myelin-specific neuro-antigen to create a recombinant fusion protein. This approach provides localized immune reaction in contrast to generalized immunosuppression that is experienced with current drug therapies for MS. The cytokine moiety not only directs the neuroantigen molecule to specific T cells but also modulates antigen presenting cell function to confer tolerogenic memory to T cells. The vaccine has proved to be efficacious in the rat EAE animal model for MS.