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Published Monday June 14, 2004 Vaccine could be Parkinson's 'milestone' BY NICHOLE AKSAMIT WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Researchers in Omaha and New York have discovered a vaccine that prevents the death of brain cells in mice with Parkinson's disease. Though the research doesn't stop or prevent the disease and has not yet been tested on people, scientists think the discovery could lead to improved treatments for human sufferers of Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. The vaccine, developed and tested on mice at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, is headed for clinical trials this fall in New York patients with Lou Gehrig's disease and in Parkinson's patients early next year. The research was posted Monday in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is to be included in the journal's June 22 print edition. Dr. Howard Gendelman, director of UNMC's Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders, said the discovery "provides new ideas and new hope for an age-old defense mechanism in the body called inflammation." Dr. Harris Gelbard, a neurology professor at University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center, has studied brain degeneration in AIDS patients with Gendelman and is familiar with the UNMC vaccine research. "This is a milestone," he said, ". . . that may have the potential to significantly improve quality of life and neurologic symptoms of people living with Parkinson's disease." The vaccine isn't like those that help ward off chickenpox or the flu. It doesn't prevent mice from getting Parkinson's. Instead, it induces the body's immune system to heal the brain. "Brain injury caused by Parkinson's generates an inflammatory response that produces an even greater amount of cell injury," explained Gendelman. The vaccine flips a switch in that immune response, prompting inflammation to subside and allowing healing to begin. Eric Benner, the UNMC graduate student who pioneered the concept and carried out much of the research, said the vaccine theoretically should help with any number of neurodegenerative disorders. Gendelman said that, in the brains of mice with Parkinson's, the vaccine protected nerve cells, nerve connections and levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that aids normal motor control and movement. The vaccine will be tested first in Lou Gehrig's patients because that disease is more quickly fatal than Parkinson's and other therapies for Parkinson's symptoms already exist, said Dr. Serge Przedborski, professor at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia Medical Center in New York and a co-author of the report. Przedborski and Gendelman anticipate that clinical trials will move forward quickly, in part because the protein in the vaccine already has been widely used to treat patients with multiple sclerosis. Another reason? The therapy doesn't rely on more controversial methods - such as gene therapy or the use of fetal or stem cells - that hold promise but may take longer to advance from laboratory to hospital bedside. Sue Baggarly Seline, a former WOWT-TV news reporter whose sister has Parkinson's and whose family helped to fund the research, said the discovery offers hope. "The first time I heard Dr. Gendelman speak, I called my sister Jackie and said, 'Help is on the way, and it's coming from Omaha,'" Seline said. Six years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's, 38-year-old Jackie Farrar is losing her smile and vocal inflection, has lost her sense of smell and has tremors on both sides of her body. "We know that it'll be a while before the vaccine is available," Seline said. "But this is a big step in the right direction." Gendelman said the research would not have advanced without the financial support of local philanthropists like Seline; the Nebraska Furniture Mart's chairman emeritus, Louie Blumkin, and his wife, Fran; and others. Of the 10 co-authors of the report, seven are from UNMC, two are from Columbia and one is from Creighton University's College of Pharmacy. Contact the Omaha World-Herald newsroom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn