Skip to main content
Advertisement
  • Other Publications
    • EMBO Press
    • EMBO reports (Home)
    • The EMBO Journal
    • EMBO Molecular Medicine
    • Molecular Systems Biology
    • Life Science Alliance
Login

   

Search

Advanced Search

Journal

  • Home
  • Latest Online
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Subject Collections
  • Review Series & Focuses

Authors & Referees

  • Submit
  • Author Guidelines
  • Aims & Scope
  • Editors & Board
  • Transparent Process
  • Bibliometrics
  • Referee Guidelines
  • Open Access

Info

  • E-Mail Editorial Office
  • Alerts
  • RSS Feeds
  • Subscriptions & Access
  • Reprints & Permissions
  • Advertise & Sponsor
  • Media Partners
  • News & Press
  • Recommend to Librarian
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • Latest Online

Science & Society

Vaccines to combat the opioid crisis

Vaccines that prevent opioids and other substances of abuse from entering the brain could effectively treat addiction and abuse
Margaret E Olson, Kim D Janda
DOI 10.15252/embr.201745322 | Published online 13.12.2017
EMBO reports (2017) e201745322
Margaret E Olson
Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USADepartment of Immunology and Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USAThe Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USAThe Worm Institute for Research and Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kim D Janda
Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USADepartment of Immunology and Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USAThe Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USAThe Worm Institute for Research and Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site

Author Affiliations

  1. Margaret E Olson1,2,3,4 and
  2. Kim D Janda (kdjanda{at}scripps.edu)1,2,3,4
  1. 1Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
  2. 2Department of Immunology and Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
  3. 3The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
  4. 4The Worm Institute for Research and Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
View Abstract
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Transparent Process
Loading

In August 2017, US President Donald Trump declared the abuse of opioids by millions of Americans a national state of emergency and highlighted the staggering statistics associated with substance use disorder (SUD), which are at record highs. The NIH reported that in 2015, 2.6 million Americans suffered from opioid use disorder (OUD), which caused US$78.5 billion in healthcare, law enforcement, and lost productivity costs for prescription opioids alone [1]. A 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that approximately 13 million Americans had misused opioids, including heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl, one or more times in the preceding year [2]. Most strikingly, the incidence of opioid‐related overdose deaths has quadrupled since 1999, with no signs of slowing. Currently, more than 90 Americans die each day from opioid overdose [3]. While the statistics are grim, an increasing commitment and more resources to develop new and efficient therapies for OUD gives hope for effectively combating the drug crisis. Earlier this year, the NIH launched a scientific initiative to combat OUD emphasizing three research areas: improvement of overdose‐reversal interventions; new treatments for opioid addiction; and alternative strategies to safely manage chronic pain [1].

A promising approach for treating addiction is immunopharmacotherapy: vaccination against a drug of abuse to induce a tailored antibody response, which prevents the drug from entering the brain and eliciting its psychoactive effects. Vaccines against heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl addiction have already shown great success in preclinical evaluation, but have yet to enter clinical trials. This commentary discusses the clinical potential for opioid vaccines along with the experimental and societal aspects that have so far prevented the development of this approach. Ultimately, the field is on the verge of delivering a vaccine with clinical utility.

Vaccines against opioids

Currently, only four FDA‐approved …

View Full Text

Subscribers, please sign in with your username and password.

Log in using your username and password

Enter your EMBO Reports username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
Forgot your user name or password?

Log in through your institution

You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.
If your organization uses OpenAthens, you can log in using your OpenAthens username and password. To check if your institution is supported, please see this list. Contact your library for more details.

Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$35.00

Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.

EMBO Members please login here to access the journals

Subscribe to the Journal

EMBO Journal

EMBO Reports

Recommend to your Librarian

EMBO Journal

EMBO Reports

 

 

Next Article in this Issue
Back to top

  • PDF
  • Share
  • Export
  • Print
Loading

PDF

In this Issue
Volume 19, Issue 4
01 April 2018 | pp -
EMBO reports: 19 (4)
About the cover
Alert me when this article is cited
Alert me if a correction is posted

Article

  • Article
    • Vaccines against opioids
    • Hapten design
    • Safety and efficacy
    • Ready for clinical testing
    • Challenges for trials in humans
    • A matter of support and funding
    • Acknowledgements
  • Figures & Data
  • Transparent Process

Related Content

More Science & Society

  • Improving animal research reporting standards
    Nikki Osborne, Marc T Avey, Lida Anestidou, Merel Ritskes‐Hoitinga, Gilly Griffin
    EMBO reports : e46069
  • Science, politics and ideologies
    Philip Hunter
    EMBO reports : e46130
  • Synthetic gene drive: between continuity and novelty
    Samson Simon, Mathias Otto, Margret Engelhard
    EMBO reports : e45760
More Science & Society

Related Articles

Cited By...

Request Permissions

Subject Areas

  • Chemical Biology
  • S&S: Health & Disease

Journal

  • Latest Online
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Bibliometrics
  • E-Mail Editorial Office

Authors & References

  • Aims & Scope
  • Editors & Board
  • Transparent Process
  • Author Guidelines
  • Referee Guidelines
  • Open Access
  • Submit

Info

  • Alerts
  • RSS Feeds
  • Subscriptions & Access
  • Reprints & Permissions
  • Advertise & Sponsor
  • News & Press
  • Recommend to Librarian
  • Customer Service

EMBO

  • Funding & Awards
  • Events
  • Science Policy
  • Members
  • About EMBO

Online ISSN  1469-3178

Copyright© 2018 EMBO

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of all modern web browsers. Older browsers may not display correctly.