If a vaccine can be developed to slow or even reverse opiate abuse, the consequences for criminal behavior, social stability, and transmission of HIV/AIDS and other blood born or sexually transmitted diseases would be enormous 3. Early studies had shown that conjugation of morphine to proteins through a derivative of its 6-hydroxyl group produced a AMG319 vaccine that AMG319 could elicit a polyclonal antibody response that bound heroin and 6-acetylmorphine, as well as morphine itself 66. but increasingly into many AMG319 suburban and rural areas as well. As an illegal activity, substance abuse results in crime, accidents, and social and economic disruptions which affect individuals, families, and entire communities. The prevalence of illicit drug experimentation and subsequent addictive use in the United States and around the world has progressed apace. Despite huge expenditures of time and money to combat drug addiction and drug trafficking (the War on Drugs) 1, billions of dollars continue to flow into the pockets of the people who grow, process and distribute these substances. Indeed, the love of money may be the root of all evil 2, but sadly, drug addicts water that root because of their drive to obtain the drugs they need. Simply proscribing drug use is no match for this drive, which leads to illicit behaviors by many addicts when the money to buy drugs almost inevitably runs out 3. At least a third of all federal and state prisoners for property crimes report that their offenses were done to obtain money for drugs 4. In 2004, more than 3% of people over the age of 12 in the United States used cocaine and/or methamphetamine, with the attendant negative consequences on education, employment, health, and behavior 1. Similar levels of abuse occur elsewhere in the developed world 5, underscoring the need for new approaches to address this problem. If an individual user could be made less susceptible to the psychological and physiological reinforcement from drug ingestion, the bonds of addiction might be more easily broken. Medications like naltrexone have benefited individual alcoholics, probably by reducing the reward that comes from ingesting alcohol and thus reducing dependence 6. However, the effects of this drug are transient, and require ongoing compliance to ensure benefits during periods when a subject ingests alcohol 7. Recently, a slow release form of naltrexone has been developed to enhance adherence, making it more effective in a substantial number of patients in Western countries8. Drug substitution can also assist in maintenance and/or withdrawal from smoking (nicotine patches or gum) 9 and opiate abuse (methodone) 10, but benefits in these addictions also require high levels of patient compliance. In addition, such pharmacological approaches are too expensive in developing countries, including China, which now faces a rapidly expanding epidemic of heroin abuse 11. At present, there are no similarly effective pharmacological agents for cocaine or methamphetamine. A persistent reduction in the reward sensation from these drugs might be achieved, however, by an entirely different method: blocking the passage of AMG319 the drugs into the brain with antibodies elicited by therapeutic vaccines. Such vaccines could also be valuable treatment tools for nicotine and morphine class drugs, especially in the developing world. This review will first discuss the immunological parameters governing the effects of the antibodies elicited by anti-drug vaccines on the pharmacodynamics of abused drugs. We will then review the current status of clinical vaccines, and will discuss pertinent animal studies. Vaccination resulting in long-term inhibition of the pharmacologic actions of abused drugs has great Rabbit Polyclonal to TSEN54 potential for assisting the motivated addict to begin and sustain abstinence from his specific substance of abuse. ANTIBODY BINDING THEORY If drug-conjugated vaccines can produce a high level of specific IgG antibodies, these molecules will bind and hold drug molecules within the circulation, preventing its access to the brain As discussed above, specific antibodies in sufficient quantity to reduce free nicotine concentrations in the blood inhibit the magnitude and rate of accumulation of nicotine in the brain. These beneficial effects have been.