An experimental "vaccine" for celiac disease is set to be tested in a new clinical trial to see if the treatment can protect patients with the condition from the effects of eating gluten — or, in other words, allow those patients to eat gluten safely.

The treatment, called Nexvax2 and made by the biotech company ImmusanT Inc., is a type of immunotherapy that aims to "reprogram" the immune system to be tolerant of gluten, the researchers said.

Celiac disease is a condition in which people's immune systems react abnormally to gluten — a protein found in wheat, rye and barley — and this reaction damages the lining of the small intestine. The condition affects about 1 out of every 100 people in the United States.

Currently, the only way to manage ...

If you're planning on buying your loved one a gift during the Christmas holiday, this may interest you.

At Christmas and birthdays, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents give gifts to their college-aged loved ones. Joel Waldfogel, an economist at Yale University, surveyed several thousand college students after Christmas to find out the value of holiday gifts as perceived by the students. He found that technology and outerwear (coats and jackets) had a perceived value about equal to their actual cash value. By the time he got down to socks, underwear, and cosmetics, the students’ evaluation was only about 85 percent of the cash value of the gift.

Now knowing this information may prompt you to believe that substituting physical gifts with ...