U.S. GROUP MAKES COCAINE VACCINE

Researchers Add A Protein To Develop Antibodies For Drug

WASHINGTON (Reuters-AP) -- California researchers said yesterday they
are a step closer to creating a vaccine against cocaine's addictive
properties and hope to begin tests on humans later this year.

Tests in rats show the vaccine can keep the drug from reaching the
brain, Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla told a
meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Drugs such as cocaine have molecules so tiny they sneak unnoticed
through the body's immune system.

Janda and colleagues have attached a protein to a derivative of
cocaine to make a molecule big enough to set off the immune system's
alarms.

The drug-plus-protein can be injected directly, to prompt the body to
make its own antibodies. Or scientists can create the antibodies in
the laboratory and inject them into patients.

Either way, the antibody grabs the drug in the bloodstream, before it
gets to the brain.

"We are able to 'train' the immune system into creating specific
antibodies which can attach themselves and ultimately stop cocaine
from ever reaching its target -- the central nervous system," Janda
said.

"Thus, we can create a 'vaccine' against cocaine's addictive
properties."

Janda said he hoped tests in humans would start later this
year.

Another cocaine vaccine has been developed by Massachusetts-based
ImmuLogic. This vaccine is made the same way, with the addition of
alum, a compound commonly used in vaccines. It is in human clinical
trials.

A cocaine vaccine would target the estimated 2 million heavy cocaine
users in the United States alone.

In Canada, an estimated 150,000 people use cocaine every year,
according to a study by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse,
released in 1994, the latest year statistics were available.

Another team of scientists told the American Chemical Society meeting
it had an antibody-based drug to treat addiction to PCP, known also as
phencyclidine or angel dust.