Validating Immunotherapy in Alzheimer's Disease: The EB101 Vaccine

Vaccination has become one of the most promising immunotherapeutic approaches in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related neuropathological hallmarks. Numerous immunotherapeutic interventions have attempted to achieve adaptive immunity against Aβ with a range of different antigenic designs and immunomodulatory strategies, most of them with great success in AD mouse model studies. Most of these studies have shown that both active and passive immunization can drastically reduce amyloid deposition and prevent the decline in cognitive performance. New approved clinical trials are under investigation to test the effectiveness of those different vaccination approaches, although previous data showed modest clinical success with some adverse inflammatory events in immunized elderly patients. The search for new approaches to overcome these severe side effects has led to novel technical methods such as live vector or DNA vaccines, although the use of innovative adjuvants combined with selected amyloid peptides is among the most auspicious. In this review, we compare and discuss the past and contemporary vaccines and the future strategies that may lead to a viable improvement in AD prevention and treatment.