As I posted earlier, the U of Neb. has filed for a patent on a vaccine for PD, I believe the lead researcher is Dr. Gendelman. I just found this announcement dated 2004 (six years ago, I can't believe it took six years to get to the stage they are at now...) here's the link, and my question for everyone here is, does anyone take copaxone and if so, any benefit? You never want to add another med, but if the vaccine being developed is based in part on the mechanism of copaxone, perhaps while we all wait and wait and wait for the vaccine to be approved, if it does, we could glean some benefit from copaxone...notice at the end of the article, they found it greatly increased GDNF...or did I read that wrong?

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_ev...on_vaccine.htm

This came through on the NPDA newsletter, dated March 2, 2010

http://www.news-medical.net/news/201...se.aspx?page=2

It looks like there is a neurotrophic effect in activating the TH17 cells; in searching Google, I see that Copaxone promotes BDNF, not "G". From Gendelman's web page at the Nebraska Center of Virology:

It was hypothesized that activated T-lymphocytes express neurotrophic factors (BDNF, NT-3, or GDNF) or can induce such responses from glia they come in contact with. We are exploring the abilities of the immune competent T lymphocytes to invade the CNS and induce protection against secondary neuronal degeneration. Our ongoing works are focused on developing therapeutic vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders using unique brain antigenic targets. Ongoing efforts are designed to determine how macrophage and T cell mediated neuroprotective responses are induced by such experimental approaches.


The guy is bright...a Fulbright Scholar and his theory above has been in study since 2000; these things bode well.

Laura