4 ms·

There's another new (as in just a few years old new) and fascinating technique for making vaccines that hasn't received much publicity. It's a general technique

There's another new (as in just a few years old new) and fascinating technique for making vaccines that hasn't received much publicity. It's a general technique that can be quickly applied to any pathogen. It was recently used to develop a vaccine against Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEEV), was used to vaccinate mice against staph, and is also being tried against new strains of polio emerging in India. Here's an excerpt from paper about VEEV summarizing the technique's mechanism: ...a disease-causing organism (pathogen) can be exposed to gamma radiation in the presence of a Deinococcus Mn complex, and rendered non-replicative (killed) by overwhelming genetic damage, but still maintain the shape of key surface proteins needed to mount a highly protective immune response. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530122345.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530122345.h... I think this could have the potential to develop a cure but isn't receiving any attention from our (dysfunctional) government (who also happens to own the patents on it!).

program_whiz 7y ago
I heard that killed virus vaccines from corona viruses can actually lead to a cytokine storm and higher mortality rate in those innoculated with it. There's a reason we don't have general vaccines for the common cold. During some previous corona related outbreaks (SARS, MERS) there was an attempt at using this method, but it actually has a backlash effect when the person is exposed to the virus.
- bluGill 7y ago
  We do have a vaccine for the common cold. Problem is the common cold is really about 300 different viruses, and a vaccine for just one of them didn't make a statistical difference.
jerf 7y ago
Don't confuse "I don't hear about it in my daily news for the general public" for "nobody has considered it". You are not receiving an unfiltered medical-professional-level summary of all efforts currently underway. You're receiving a chaotically chosen, filtered-through-reporters (who mostly don't understand any of this beyond the middle-school level) subset of the news, further skewed by PR people actively trying to promote their own stuff. There could be any number of complicated biochemical reasons why this approach won't work on this particular virus.
koheripbal 7y ago
The problem is not vaccine development - the bottleneck is TESTING. The vaccine itself can be developed in literally DAYS (for most viruses). The problem is that it takes a YEAR to test it comfortably in humans. For something that you'll be delivering to otherwise healthy humans, the bar for safety is extremely high. ...now the modern counter-argument is that if 4% of people are going to die globally, then maybe the safety bar should not be so high (this time).

program_whiz 7y ago

I heard that killed virus vaccines from corona viruses can actually lead to a cytokine storm and higher mortality rate in those innoculated with it. There's a reason we don't have general vaccines for the common cold. During some previous corona related outbreaks (SARS, MERS) there was an attempt at using this method, but it actually has a backlash effect when the person is exposed to the virus.

bluGill 7y ago
We do have a vaccine for the common cold. Problem is the common cold is really about 300 different viruses, and a vaccine for just one of them didn't make a statistical difference.

jerf 7y ago

Don't confuse "I don't hear about it in my daily news for the general public" for "nobody has considered it". You are not receiving an unfiltered medical-professional-level summary of all efforts currently underway. You're receiving a chaotically chosen, filtered-through-reporters (who mostly don't understand any of this beyond the middle-school level) subset of the news, further skewed by PR people actively trying to promote their own stuff. There could be any number of complicated biochemical reasons why this approach won't work on this particular virus.

koheripbal 7y ago

The problem is not vaccine development - the bottleneck is TESTING. The vaccine itself can be developed in literally DAYS (for most viruses). The problem is that it takes a YEAR to test it comfortably in humans. For something that you'll be delivering to otherwise healthy humans, the bar for safety is extremely high. ...now the modern counter-argument is that if 4% of people are going to die globally, then maybe the safety bar should not be so high (this time).