3 ms·

What will be interesting is if we aren't able to develop a safe and efficacious (enough) vaccine. We might need to find ways to make social-distancing the statu

What will be interesting is if we aren't able to develop a safe and efficacious (enough) vaccine. We might need to find ways to make social-distancing the status-quo for multiple years. Edit: Hang on, why couldn't you make a vaccine against a prion? I can't see why it's not possible theoretically.

guitarbill 6y ago
presumably since the protein is usually present, and the prion is just has a misfolded shape, it would be very tough to get the immune system to attack just the prions... however, there's at least one paper that has researched a vaccine in mice against a scrapie prion infection. are there even treatments for any prion diseases? for BSE/mad cow disease, they killed millions of cows. to this day, if you're from/were in the UK during the outbreak, you can't give blood in quite a few countries. and - surprise! - apparently prions could be spread via the air [0]. but it isn't clear how this could occur naturally, so at least that's good news. [0] https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/ https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  That's a cool question about treatments. I guess there's no FDA-approved therapy for mad cow, but I did find this cool animal model using 'anti-prions.' "Here, we report a novel experimental strategy for preventing prion disease based on producing a self-replicating, but innocuous PrPSc-like form, termed anti-prion, which can compete with the replication of pathogenic prions." "...a prophylactic inoculation of prion-infected animals with an anti-prion delays the onset of the disease and in some animals completely prevents the development of clinical symptoms and brain damage." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ So that's more good news. Edit: Hold on, that's the paper you were talking about, right? I didn't make the connection until just now.

guitarbill 6y ago

presumably since the protein is usually present, and the prion is just has a misfolded shape, it would be very tough to get the immune system to attack just the prions... however, there's at least one paper that has researched a vaccine in mice against a scrapie prion infection. are there even treatments for any prion diseases? for BSE/mad cow disease, they killed millions of cows. to this day, if you're from/were in the UK during the outbreak, you can't give blood in quite a few countries. and - surprise! - apparently prions could be spread via the air [0]. but it isn't clear how this could occur naturally, so at least that's good news. [0] https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/ https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/

phobosanomaly 6y ago
That's a cool question about treatments. I guess there's no FDA-approved therapy for mad cow, but I did find this cool animal model using 'anti-prions.' "Here, we report a novel experimental strategy for preventing prion disease based on producing a self-replicating, but innocuous PrPSc-like form, termed anti-prion, which can compete with the replication of pathogenic prions." "...a prophylactic inoculation of prion-infected animals with an anti-prion delays the onset of the disease and in some animals completely prevents the development of clinical symptoms and brain damage." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ So that's more good news. Edit: Hold on, that's the paper you were talking about, right? I didn't make the connection until just now.