Dementia vaccine may be just years away, Aussie scientists

A vaccine for the degenerative disease dementia may be just three to five years away according to Australian researchers, following a "breakthrough discovery" which could prevent up to 7.5 million new cases of the condition every year.

Dementia is a syndrome which affects a person's memory, thinking and the ability to perform day-to-day tasks, and is especially prevalent in older people, however researchers from the Flinders University in Adelaide believe they have found a way to prevent it before it strikes, thanks to a collaboration with research teams at the Institute of Molecular Medicine and University of California.

The Australian researchers believe they have successfully created a vaccine formula which targets the irregular beta-amyloid and tau proteins triggering the onset of the disease.

Flinders University medicine professor Nikolai Petrovsky told News Corp Wednesday that if the breakthrough passes human trialing, it could be available for widespread use within five years.

"If we are successful in (human) clinical trials, in three to five years we could be well on the way to one of the most important developments in recent medical history," Petrovsky said.

He said researchers had targeted the offending cells so effectively that the formula was more likely to be used as a preventative vaccine instead of a treatment.

"It is actually our technology we've developed here in Adelaide that is what has transformed the vaccine to make it powerful enough; we have been able to make it dramatically more potent so it could eventually be used as a preventative measure," Petrovsky said. Endit