New vaccine could someday fight the effects of opioid combinations
The researchers are presenting their work today at the 254th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). "There is an urgent need to discover effective medications to treat substance use disorders. Increasingly, drug users are turning to opioids and powerful synthetic versions of these drugs that can sometimes be as much as 100 times more potent than heroin," says Kim D. Janda, Ph.D., who led the research into the vaccines. "Moreover, many patients receiving treatment relapse." The rise of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl is a critical element in the opioid crisis in the U.S. Heroin laced with fentanyl or fentanyl alone have contributed to the dramatic rise in overdose deaths among addicts. Janda's team at the Scripps Research Institute has prepared a vaccine that is effective against fentanyl and has made progress in the development of a combination vaccine that offers protection from both heroin and fentanyl. In addition ...