Vaccines against cocaine, heroin and other substances may one day help addicts stay clean
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When neuroscientist George Koob proposed creating a vaccine for addiction 25 years ago, his colleagues thought he was wasting his time. The immune system evolved to prevent infections, not highs from illegal drugs. Prevailing wisdom holds that treating addiction requires months or years of psychotherapy to help addicts change their thought patterns, a difficult process that does not consistently work. But Koob, then at the Scripps Research Institute, wanted addicts to be able to see their doctor for a shot that could keep them from getting high when their motivation to stay clean waned.
His premise was simple. Vaccines against infectious diseases work by priming the body to produce antibodies that glom onto the invading pathogen, preventing it from causing illness. Koob, who now directs the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, believed that the body could be duped into producing antibodies to drugs of abuse. The antibodies would biochemically block these drugs from creating a high, thereby eliminating the incentive to use them. Unlike traditional vaccines, however, this approach would aim to treat, rather than prevent, drug abuse.
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