| Abstract | The objective of this project is to make a vaccine that will negate the effects of the powerful opioid fentanyl in the long term. Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. According to the CDC, there were over 70,000 deaths due to street drug overdoses, which has increased in the last ten years. 40 % of these deaths are related to fentanyl overdoses, therefore it is imperative that approaches are developed to combat this alarming increase in deaths. The vaccine against fentanyl will be synthesized out of molecules that will take advantage of fentanyl's amide functional group to be hydrolyzed into innocuous byproducts. Any patient that is administered with the vaccine, will not feel the effects of the opioid because the immune system will hydrolyze the drug as soon as it enters. This project will exploit the properties of both catalytic antibodies (CAbs) and transition state analogs (TSAs). The TSAs attached to an immunogenic protein (ovalbumin) will trigger an immune response which will lead to the production of antibodies (Ab) against the TSA and the ovalbumin. Since the TSA will resemble or mimic the transition-state of fentanyl hydrolysis, then the antibodies will become catalytic antibodies capable of cleaving fentanyl through amide bond hydrolysis. Therefore, after immunization, a person who is addicted to fentanyl should no longer feel the effects of the opioid because it will be degraded as soon as an immune response is triggered, creating a long-term possible solution to one factor of the opioid crisis. |
