High cholesterol, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, could be treatable in coming decades with a new vaccine developed by University of New Mexico Health scientists. The vaccine lowers bad cholesterol in mice and non-human primates, potentially offering a cheaper treatment for high cholesterol.

The new episode of It’s Probably Not Rocket Science (IPNRS) interviews the creators of this vaccine, discussing its development, purpose, and the role graduate students play in the research process. The episode explains how the vaccine works, was developed and the problem it aims to solve.

 

Bryce Chackerian, endowed professor of biomedical research excellence and Regents’s professor and vice chair in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and the UNM School of Medicine, is a featured guest on the episode. His laboratory has a vaccine platform technology based on a virus particle that can be used to develop vaccines against various diseases.

“The immune system has developed all these different mechanisms to respond very strongly to viral infections. What we've done is taken advantage of that, and we have used what's called the virus spike particle, which is just sort of the empty shell of a virus,” Chackerian explained.

Blood cholesterol is made in the liver and consumed through certain foods. It is beneficial to create hormones and digest fatty foods, but too much can cause a build-up of plaque in our arteries and increase the risk of heart disease and heart attack. This week’s episode divulges the factors that influence cholesterol levels and how much control humans have over them.

The vaccine targets the PCSK9 protein. This protein influences LDL cholesterol levels, and alterations in this protein can lead to higher or lower cholesterol levels.

People with mutations that increase PCSK9 function have high LDL cholesterol and higher rates of cardiovascular disease. However, those with mutations that reduce PCSK9 function have lower LDL cholesterol and rarely get heart disease. 

So why do we have this protein? It’s unclear, but decades of study of groups without the protein and several years of treatment through PCSK9 inhibitors seem to indicate humans don’t need it.

The vaccine encourages the immune system to create its own antibodies to work against PCSK9, reducing the cost of treatment when compared to the more expensive PCSK9 inhibitor drugs currently on the market. The vaccine was successful in reducing LDL cholesterol in mice and non-human primates, and could soon undergo human trials.

“Cardiovascular disease is not just a first-world problem. People have elevated LDL cholesterol and are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease all over the place. That's where I think the vaccine is going to have its greatest effects: in those places where paying $6,000 for a drug is outside of the realm of possibility,” Chackerian said.

This work was led by Bryce Chackerian and Alex Fowler, a UNM alumna now working for Moderna in Boston. Mass. Fowler discusses the extensive research and dedication required to develop the vaccine, describing the publication of their study as the culmination of five years of work.

“I've seen friends who were working on their Ph.D. and the amount of time and effort that they spend on it and also getting that help and guidance from their mentor. It ends up being like a collective and like a family. In the end, you're the one who has to drive it,” Fowler said. “You have to be the expert.

The next step is to find commercial partners to promote the vaccine. It will undergo safety, efficacy, and consistency trials before being approved. Depending on any potential hurdles encountered, this could take three to five years.

“We have really nice data now that we've shown that the vaccine works in animals,” said Chackerian. “The next step is finding commercial partners so that we can move this forward.”

“This is kind of a unique vaccine because instead of targeting an infectious disease virus, we're targeting something your body normally makes. There have not been any of those vaccines approved yet. That's possibly a barrier for us is that this is kind of a paradigm-breaking vaccine,” he said.

Listen to the episode today to learn more.

IPNRS will be back later this month with an exciting space episode on the James Webb Space Telescope, featuring Nobel laureate John Mather.

Listen to It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you find podcasts. Learn more about the show on podcast.unm.edu and follow it on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok.