The immunological and pharmacokinetic evaluation of Lipid-PLGA hybrid nanoparticle-based oxycodone vaccines.

The current opioid epidemic is one of the most profound public health crises facing the United States. Despite that it has been under the spotlight for years, available treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose are limited to opioid receptor ligands such as the agonist methadone and the overdose reversing drugs such as naloxone. Vaccines are emerging as an alternative strategy to combat OUD and prevent relapse and overdose.

Efficiency of Interferon-γ in Activating Dendritic Cells and Its Potential Synergy with Toll-like Receptor Agonists.

Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) is a cytokine that plays an important role in immune regulation, especially in the activation and differentiation of immune cells. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of pattern-recognition receptors that sense structural motifs related to pathogens and alert immune cells to the invasion. Both IFN-γ and TLR agonists have been used as immunoadjuvants to augment the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases or psychoactive compounds.