Cutting edge Seminar

 

Speaker: Hironori Nakagami （Professor, Department of Health Development and Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine）

Title:　Development of Therapeutic Vaccines for Chronic Diseases

 

Date&Time: 23 Oct.  (Wed.) 2019, 12:00- 13:00

Venue: Conference Room(1F), IMEG

 

Abstract:

Vaccines are commonly used worldwide as a preventive medicine for infectious diseases and have recently been applied to cancer. We and others have developed therapeutic vaccines designed for chronic diseases that are notably different from previous vaccines. In the case of cancer vaccines, a specific protein in cancer cells is a target antigen, and the activation of cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) is required to kill and remove the antigen-presenting cancer cells. Our therapeutic vaccine mainly induces the antibody, but not CTLs, which could be used as therapies against common diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or hypertension. In our system, an immunogenic molecule (i.e., KLH) with adjuvants provides an antigen that supports the activation of helper T cells in the combination of adjuvants. We have already reported the Angiotensin II vaccine for hypertension and related diseases (Hypertension 2015, Stroke 2017, Sci Rep2017), DPP-4 vaccine for Diabetes (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014), PCSK9 vaccine for Dyslipidemia (PLoS One 2018) and S100A9 vaccine as an anti-platelet effect for thrombosis in each animal model. In terms of Angiotensin II vaccine project, the phase I clinical trial has been designed and first-in-patient was enrolled in 2018.

The therapeutic target of our therapeutic vaccine is similar to that of antibody therapy. Recently, multiple antibody-based drugs have been developed for cancer, immune-related diseases and dyslipidemia, which are efficient but expensive. If the effect of a therapeutic vaccine is nearly equivalent to antibody therapy as an alternative approach, the lower medical cost and improvement of drug adherence can be advantages of therapeutic vaccines. In this session, we will introduce our concept of therapeutic vaccines for cardiovascular diseases and the future directions of therapeutic vaccines as novel immunotherapy.