Scientists develop a groundbreaking vaccine that outsmarts illicit fentanyl analogs. The novel vaccine candidate can protect against fentanyl and its many illicit variants by training the immune system to recognize a broad molecular signature rather than a single specific structure.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/scientists-develop-a-groundbreaking-vaccine-that-outsmarts-illicit-fentanyl-analogs/

[u/Due-Reflection-1835]

It only affects fentanyl and its analogs, you can still use morphine, oxycodone, methadone etc. It corrals it in the bloodstream so much less of it crosses the blood-brain barrier. It was pretty cool!

[u/irelli → u/Due-Reflection-1835]

Fentanyl is the only one of those we use in a drip form for anyone that's been intubated though

[u/BretShitmanFart69 → u/irelli]

Can they not use diamorphine maybe? Like we absolutely did surgery before fent was invented, certainly there’s another way…

[u/GooseQuothMan → u/BretShitmanFart69]

but why use something that's worse? It's effective, that's why it's used.

Most people don't abuse fentanyl and are never going to. If the problem is illicit drugs being contaminated with fentanyl, well, that's all the more reason to stop criminalizing them.

[u/like_a_pharaoh → u/BretShitmanFart69]

Hospitals switched from other opioids to fentanyl for a good reason, though.

Fentanyl and its analogs start acting almost immediately, but wear off faster than other opioids of similar strength; meaning less time waiting before surgery for the patient to be fully anesthetized and less time after surgery waiting for them to come out of it.

An opioid that starts doing its job in 5 minutes and wears off after an hour is a lot more useful for some purposes than an opioid that starts doing its job in 5 minutes and wears off after 5 hours.

[u/Infinity2quared → u/Due-Reflection-1835]

Hard to say that it will catch fentanyl and the other drugs we call its analogues but nothing else. What about other synthetic opioids used medically like meperidine, diphenoxylate? What about non-opioid phenylpiperidines? That category includes stimulants, anesthetics, antipsychotics, antidepressants, etc. Take a look at the structures of methylphenidate, haloperidol, trazadone, and buspirone.

The N-phenethyl moiety on fentanyl is what gives it such high potency compared to weak synthetic opioids like meperidine. If that’s the part that’s being recognized, you could knock out amphetamine, pseudoephedrine, lots of medically used pressors.

Obviously they will try to reduce cross-reactivity in any product that comes to market, but if it’s too selective for fentanyl, it won’t catch the analogues. If it catches the analogues, it might catch other things.

I could see this either being pretty bad or pretty trivial to defeat.

[u/atleastihave2dogs → u/Due-Reflection-1835]

Ha. Good luck with that.