Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated that their compound can eliminate the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis. Researchers at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed

In trials

  • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
    7·
    6 months ago

    So skimming through the link, it’s a vaccine because it’s still triggering a specific body response to fight the illness as opposed to directly attacking the illness itself? Is that a reasonable layman’s summary of why it’s called a vaccine?

    (Old x’er here, Vaccines have been preventative for as long as I’ve ever known, that’s the reason for the question.)

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 months ago

      The article says the immune system has a mechanism for teaching it not to attack every time there is a damaged cell via a process in the liver. They are saying they can take a protein, say myelin, and attach it to a sugar called pGal, and it will get ported to the liver where it will also get “trained” to not attack myelin. Then the immune system shouldn’t attack nerve fibers as in MS.

      So I guess it qualifies as a vaccine as it is involved in training the immune system though in this case to NOT attack something.