Wired reports "Inside the Los Alamos weapons lab, massive computer simulations are unleashing disease and tracking its course, 6 billion people at a time."
"If we can cut the lag time from 30 years to a decade or less, that's 20 years of lives saved," said Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, an advocacy group in White River Junction, Vt.The sentiment, however valid, is a measure of the degree to which the public-health world has become accustomed to death on a mass scale.
The next step in the research project I was involved in before medical school, using the nicotine vaccine to prevent the transfer of nicotine across the placenta, has advanced to the next stage. A paper was recently published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology (2005:70(11)1664-72) showing the the vaccine significantly blocks the transfer of nicotine across the human placenta.
The adverse effects of smoking during pregnancy on fetal development are, in part, due to nicotine. These effects may be due to the actions of nicotine in fetal circulation or on placental functions. In pregnant rats, vaccination with a nicotine immunogen reduces the transfer of nicotine from the maternal to fetal circulation. However, extrapolation of these results to pregnant women might not be valid due to the well-recognized differences between human and rat placentas. In the current investigation, the effects of nicotine-specific antibodies on the transfer of nicotine from the maternal to fetal circuit of the dually perfused human placental lobule were determined. Two types of nicotine-specific antibodies were investigated; nicotine-specific mouse monoclonal antibody (Nic311, K(d) for nicotine 60nM) and IgG from rabbits vaccinated with a nicotine immunogen (Nic-IgG, K(d) 1.6nM). Transfer of the antibodies from maternal to fetal circuits was negligible. Both rabbit Nic-IgG and, to a lesser extent, mouse monoclonal Nic311 significantly reduced nicotine transfer from the maternal to fetal circuit as well as the retention of the drug by placental tissue. These effects were mediated by a substantial increase in the protein binding of nicotine and a reduction in the unbound nicotine concentration. Therefore, the data cited in this report suggest that the use of nicotine-specific antibodies might reduce fetal exposure to the drug, and that antibody affinity for nicotine is a key determinant of the extent of nicotine transfer.
The results of a hybrid Phas I/II clinical trial of the Nicotine Vaccine, the one I was working with before medical school, has just been reported in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2005:78(5);456-467):
Immunotherapy is a novel potential treatment for nicotine addiction. The aim of this study was to assess the safety and immunogenicity of a nicotine conjugate vaccine, NicVAX, and its effects on smoking behavior. Smokers (N = 68) were recruited for a noncessation treatment study and assigned to 1 of 3 doses of the nicotine vaccine (50, 100, or 200 microg) or placebo. They were injected on days 0, 28, 56, and 182 and monitored for a period of 38 weeks. Results showed that the nicotine vaccine was safe and well tolerated. Vaccine immunogenicity was dose-related (P < .001), with the highest dose eliciting antibody concentrations within the anticipated range of efficacy. There was no evidence of compensatory smoking or precipitation of nicotine withdrawal with the nicotine vaccine. The 30-day abstinence rate was significantly different across the 4 doses (P = .02), with the highest rate of abstinence occurring with 200 microg. The nicotine vaccine appears to be a promising medication for tobacco dependence.