The second category of treatment, known as immunotherapy, is more investigational but also more exciting, Leffler said. It would allow patients to eat a regular diet by quelling immune response in the gut. This response is driven by immune cells known as T cells, which react when other immune cells display gluten fragments on their surface.
In Australia, a company founded by Anderson, called Nexpep, is packaging the gluten peptides that trigger this immune response into a vaccine that will desensitize the immune reaction. The theory, which he says works in animals, is that by introducing these peptides through injections under the skin rather than through the gut, the immune cells learn to tolerate them and no longer display them to the T cells. That can theoretically prevent or turn off the reaction that damages the intestines
Anderson expects Phase I safety trials of this vaccine, Nexvax2, to be completed in mid-2010. He anticipates that patients would receive a series of injections of the vaccine, followed by occasional maintenance doses.
"If we can figure out how to give the drug, how frequently and when we need maintenance therapy," he added, "then we can use the same principle to explore treatments for other autoimmune diseases." Several other groups are also developing vaccines for celiac disease, but this one is furthest along.
A low-tech immunotherapy approach might require just one inoculation -- of hookworm. It is known that a non-pathogenic hookworm introduced to the gut can relieve asthma symptoms. Researchers suspect that it is because we evolved with intestinal parasites that trained our immune system to tolerate environmental irritants, but our hygienic modern living has deprived us of this beneficial symbiosis.
Researchers at the Brisbane Princess Alexandra Hospital in Queensland, Australia, tested the effects of hookworm inoculation on 20 patients with celiac disease to see if it would blunt the immune response to gluten. In addition to hoping to provide relief for celiac patients, the researchers want to learn if this could be an effective therapy for inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease.
The results have not been published, but when the Phase II trial was over and the patients were offered a medication that would kill the parasites, they all opted to keep their hookworms.
health@latimes.com
