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Yes I agree - but I read this [1] today, which talks about "universal" vaccines. "RNA and DNA vaccines are so far experimental, but trials have been promising

Yes I agree - but I read this [1] today, which talks about "universal" vaccines. "RNA and DNA vaccines are so far experimental, but trials have been promising and many scientists believe it could be one of those two types that will be the model that goes into mass production to protect against COVID-19. The attraction, say experts, is that they will potentially offer a step towards something that has been the holy grail of vaccine design – the universal vaccine. The vaccines being trialed by the team from Pfizer, which tests show provides protection in 90% of cases, and from Moderna, which shows efficacy of 94.5%, are RNA vaccines. If either proves to be the winner in the race for a COVID vaccine, it will represent a seismic shift in vaccine technology." [1] https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-how-vaccine-research-is-powering-a-giant-leap-in-medical-progress-11974369 https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-how-vaccine-research-...

JackC 6y ago
Interesting. The next paragraph explains more what they mean by that: "Jeffrey Almond, a visiting professor of microbiology at William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, told Sky News: 'All the current vaccines we have: diptheria, whooping cough, polio, measles, papillomavirus, you name it; all of them are very different. You don't have a generic process to make them. You have a dedicated factory, a dedicated process, very different technologies. "'What RNA and DNA offer is an escape from that. We can make the RNA by a single process in a single factory. All we have to do is change the sequence of the RNA or DNA.'" Very cool, but not necessarily "universal" in the sense you'd need to target all the different rapidly-mutating cold viruses.
- ericb 6y ago
  > "We can make the RNA by a single process in a single factory. All we have to do is change the sequence of the RNA or DNA." That's really interesting! Imagine RNA vaccine creation "as a service." Researchers order fully-formed injectable vaccines for animal trials just by submitting a sequence. It would be like AWS for vaccines.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    No, the hope is even greater: your doctor orders a fully formed injectable vaccine for the specific cancer that is currently growing in your body. Nobody else has exactly that same mutation, so there is no point in animal trails as the vaccine will only be helpful to you. This vaccine is a great help to the above: it proves conclusively that the idea is sound. Probably future mRNA vaccines can skip all the phase 1-2 trials and go directly to 3. And for rare diesease they can even skip phase 3.

JackC 6y ago

Interesting. The next paragraph explains more what they mean by that: "Jeffrey Almond, a visiting professor of microbiology at William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, told Sky News: 'All the current vaccines we have: diptheria, whooping cough, polio, measles, papillomavirus, you name it; all of them are very different. You don't have a generic process to make them. You have a dedicated factory, a dedicated process, very different technologies. "'What RNA and DNA offer is an escape from that. We can make the RNA by a single process in a single factory. All we have to do is change the sequence of the RNA or DNA.'" Very cool, but not necessarily "universal" in the sense you'd need to target all the different rapidly-mutating cold viruses.

ericb 6y ago
> "We can make the RNA by a single process in a single factory. All we have to do is change the sequence of the RNA or DNA." That's really interesting! Imagine RNA vaccine creation "as a service." Researchers order fully-formed injectable vaccines for animal trials just by submitting a sequence. It would be like AWS for vaccines.
- bluGill 6y ago
  No, the hope is even greater: your doctor orders a fully formed injectable vaccine for the specific cancer that is currently growing in your body. Nobody else has exactly that same mutation, so there is no point in animal trails as the vaccine will only be helpful to you. This vaccine is a great help to the above: it proves conclusively that the idea is sound. Probably future mRNA vaccines can skip all the phase 1-2 trials and go directly to 3. And for rare diesease they can even skip phase 3.