The world of vaccines has been in full swing since the Covid crisis, which has not only favored research on prototypes based on messenger RNA technology, but also in new experimental models some very daring. The first results of one of them were announced this week.
An American group is working to develop a new immunization it calls a “reverse vaccine.” They call it that because it does what it does deactivate the defense system against so-called autoimmune diseases, which are caused by our own immunity. What is known about the work, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, provides hope. In the laboratory, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Crohn’s disease have already been overcome.
All organs in the human body can fail, sometimes including the immune system. Failure of the immune system leads to autoimmune diseases, which occur when immunity, instead of protecting you, becomes the enemy of your own health. The “machine” ceases to recognize a tissue, a system or an organ as part of the organism and attacks it to overcome the non-existent aggression.
Conventional vaccines are designed to train the immune system to recognize the pathogen that causes a disease, a virus or bacteria, and focus its defenses on it. But that was by definition impossible with autoimmune diseases. Until now.
“Don’t attack”
Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have shown in the laboratory that they are able to reverse multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Crohn’s disease without causing the immune system to stop functioning. The “reverse vaccine” they developed does this Eliminate the memory that the immune system has associated with these diseases. Exactly the opposite of what vaccines do against infections. The reverse vaccine uses the liver’s ability to “mark” the molecules of decomposed cells with “do not attack” flags, to explain it clearly. This measure prevents autoimmune reactions against cells that die due to natural processes.
