A team of researchers are claiming to have successfully tested a vaccine against heroine. The vaccine produced antibody molecules that stopped the psychoactive chemicals in their track, preventing them from jumping the blood-brain barrier to manifest the euphoric “high”.
Blocking heroine is especially tricky as it rapidly degrades into its many metabolites like 6AM and morphine. “Critically, the vaccine produces antibodies to a constantly changing drug target,” said G. Neil Stowe, the author of the study. “Such an approach has never before been engaged with drug-of-abuse vaccines.”
They did this by linking a heroin-like hapten (a small molecule that elicits an immune response) to a generic carrier protein and mixed it with Alum to create a vaccine “cocktail.”
The same laboratory has tested similar vaccines against other drugs-of-abuse: cocaine and nicotine on animal models. Human clinical trials for these are under way. The study will be published in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
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Monroe’s porn film to be auctioned
Buenos Aires: A pornographic short film of Marilyn Monroe will be auctioned off in August at an international film collectors’ convention for a starting price of $500,000, event promoter Mikel Barsa said on Wednesday.
The six minute black and white film, which dates from 1946, shows the American actress, then known as Norma Jean Baker, and an unknown male. Barsa said the film will go on the auction block on August 7 at 7.00 pm at the Borges Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires. “Knowing how many Marilyn fanatics are out there, the film could easily sell for a million dollars,” he told a press conference. The film had been in the possession of a Spanish film collector, but after his death his family decided to let Barsa sell the print.
—AFP