Multiple sclerosis is most common in young adults, with more than 90 percent of the cases being diagnosed before the age of 55, and fewer than five percent diagnosed before the age of five. Women are two to three times more likely to develop the disease, which afflicts about 350,000 patients in the United States. There is no cure for the disease and the cause of MS is unknown. But evidence points to the involvement of immune cells and antibodies that recognize and attack specific substances in the myelin, such as myelin basic protein.

The Candian researchers, lead by Amit Bar-Or, M.D., of the Montreal Neurological Institute, have tested the DNA vaccine, currently known as BHT-3009, which encodes a full-length human myelin basic protein. The vaccine is produced by Bayhill Therapeutics, a Palo Alto, California-based biotechnology company.

Between 2005 and 2006, 30 patients with relapsing-remitting MS or secondary progressive MS received the vaccine.  

After one, three, five and nine weeks, participants received intramuscular injections of placebo or BHT-3009 (in doses of .5 milligrams, 1.5 milligrams or 3 milligrams), with or without 80-milligram pills of atorvastatin calcium, a lipid-lowering drug previously shown to be effective in autoimmune conditions. After 13 weeks, participants who initially received placebo received four injections of BHT-3009.

The status of the patients was evaluated through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other safety investigation methods at the beginning of the study and after five, nine, 13, 26, 38 and 50 weeks.

By analyzing the evolution of the patients, the Canadian scientist discovered not only the vaccine is safe to use, but it also produced beneficial antigen-specific immune changes

“BHT-3009 was safe and well tolerated, provided favorable trends on brain MRI and produced beneficial antigen-specific immune changes,” the authors write.

Based on these promising results randomized clinical trial involving administering BHT-3009 to approximately 290 patients is underway with hopes that successful treatment of MS sufferers could pave the way for the development of similar vaccines to prevent or treat related diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers concluded.

"Eventually, and this is a goal for farther down the road, we believe that the targets of these diseases may not be identical across patients, and so one would really like to reach the stage where we can take blood from an individual and find out in that individual which are the bad guy cells, and then generate a particular individualized treatment with DNA vaccine,'' Bar-Or said.

Last month, another group of researchers reported the discovery of a new gene located on the chromosome 5 and involved in guiding the production of interleukin-7 receptor alpha (IL-7R).  . Interleukin-7 receptor alpha (IL-7R) is a critical receptor for the development and growth of key immune system cells and it was associated with an increased susceptibility to MS.