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I hope that, as a result of this, those in power realize that we need to invest more in biotech. It seems to me that government pour too much money into things

I hope that, as a result of this, those in power realize that we need to invest more in biotech. It seems to me that government pour too much money into things like deep learning research (which will serve to eliminate jobs and enable a surveillance state), and not enough in research that could save lives and eliminate illnesses. We really should have the capability to develop and mass-manufacture antivirals much faster, ideally in the span of a few weeks. We understand the basic physics involved, we can do protein folding and I assume we can simulate how well synthetic molecules bind to proteins. Why don't we have this technological capability? It seems it really should be within the realm of what we're capable of achieving.

sanxiyn 6y ago
This is exactly the goal of DARPA's Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program. https://www.darpa.mil/program/pandemic-prevention-platform https://www.darpa.mil/program/pandemic-prevention-platform I am constantly surprised how often the answer to why aren't we funding this really ambitious but also really impactful project? is yup, DARPA is funding it, but nobody else is, and we probably should increase DARPA funding by 10x.
philwelch 6y ago
Check out this 2005 statement from George W. Bush with some very similar ideas: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051101-1.html https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/20... Some notable passages: > At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe. One-third of the U.S. population was infected, and life expectancy in our country was reduced by 13 years. The 1918 pandemic was followed by pandemics in 1957 and 1968 which killed tens of thousands of Americans, and millions across the world. > Three years ago, the world had a preview of the disruption an influenza pandemic can cause, when a previously unknown virus called SARS appeared in rural China. ... > The second part of our strategy is to protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, and accelerating development of new vaccine technologies. One of the challenges presented by a pandemic is that scientists need a sample of the new strain before they can produce a vaccine against it. This means it is difficult to produce a pandemic vaccine before the pandemic actually appears -- and so there may not be a vaccine capable of fully immunizing our citizens from the new influenza virus during the first several months of a pandemic. ... > To protect the greatest possible number of Americans during a pandemic, the cornerstone of our strategy is to develop new technologies that will allow us to produce new vaccines rapidly. If a pandemic strikes our country -- if a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain. ... > Since American lives depend on rapid advances in vaccine production technology, we must fund a crash program to help our best scientists bring the next generation of technology online rapidly. I'm asking Congress for $2.8 billion to accelerate development of cell-culture technology. By bringing cell-culture technology from the research laboratory into the production line, we should be able to produce enough vaccine for every American within six months of the start of a pandemic.

sanxiyn 6y ago

This is exactly the goal of DARPA's Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program. https://www.darpa.mil/program/pandemic-prevention-platform https://www.darpa.mil/program/pandemic-prevention-platform I am constantly surprised how often the answer to why aren't we funding this really ambitious but also really impactful project? is yup, DARPA is funding it, but nobody else is, and we probably should increase DARPA funding by 10x.

philwelch 6y ago

Check out this 2005 statement from George W. Bush with some very similar ideas: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051101-1.html https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/20... Some notable passages: > At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe. One-third of the U.S. population was infected, and life expectancy in our country was reduced by 13 years. The 1918 pandemic was followed by pandemics in 1957 and 1968 which killed tens of thousands of Americans, and millions across the world. > Three years ago, the world had a preview of the disruption an influenza pandemic can cause, when a previously unknown virus called SARS appeared in rural China. ... > The second part of our strategy is to protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, and accelerating development of new vaccine technologies. One of the challenges presented by a pandemic is that scientists need a sample of the new strain before they can produce a vaccine against it. This means it is difficult to produce a pandemic vaccine before the pandemic actually appears -- and so there may not be a vaccine capable of fully immunizing our citizens from the new influenza virus during the first several months of a pandemic. ... > To protect the greatest possible number of Americans during a pandemic, the cornerstone of our strategy is to develop new technologies that will allow us to produce new vaccines rapidly. If a pandemic strikes our country -- if a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain. ... > Since American lives depend on rapid advances in vaccine production technology, we must fund a crash program to help our best scientists bring the next generation of technology online rapidly. I'm asking Congress for $2.8 billion to accelerate development of cell-culture technology. By bringing cell-culture technology from the research laboratory into the production line, we should be able to produce enough vaccine for every American within six months of the start of a pandemic.