Researchers trick the immune system into recognizing and attacking misfolded proteins that cause brain diseases, increasing survival in mice.
March 09, 2026 By Gillian Rutherford
A University of Alberta research team has developed a vaccine that increases survival in mice with Parkinson’s disease.
In newly published research, the team engineered a harmless fungal fibre to mimic the misfolded and clumped alpha-synuclein proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy.
Tests showed that following injection of the engineered fibres, the mice’s immune systems learned to recognize and attack the harmful proteins, slowing the disease. The immunized mice lived up to 42 per cent longer than the untreated animals.
“Currently no disease-modifying treatments or vaccines exist for Parkinson’s disease,” explains primary Canadian investigator Holger Wille, professor of biochemistry and director of the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases. “These vaccines could provide significant protection, if approved for human use.”
Wille says the next steps for the research will be to test the vaccine in additional mouse models of Parkinson’s disease and to establish larger-scale vaccine production methods, which are formal steps needed before clinical trials in humans can be considered.
The U of A team collaborated with researchers at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany. Funds were provided by the Weston Brain Institute, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Parkinson Association of Alberta, Striving for Pandemic Preparedness – The Alberta Consortium and the Government of Alberta.
Holger Wille is a member of the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute and has received funding from the institute for followup research on the vaccine.