The quest to find a safe, effective obesity treatment that could be used by the flabby masses led one team of investigators to try out a new vaccine approach that proved promising in a preclinical mouse study. The scientists created two versions of modified somatostatin, a peptide hormone, and found that the vaccines knocked off an average of 10% of the fat off of the rodents in four days. And they say the same approach is worth trying out in humans. The team at Braasch Biotech–which has been collaborating with investigators at the Jackson Laboratory--was working with the knowledge that somatostatin puts a brake on the action of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which are known to rev up metabolism and spur weight loss. The vaccines generated antibodies to somatostatin, which eased the brake on those two targets and helped lead to the weight loss. Story