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While this is indeed a new vaccine modality, it doesn't change the dynamics of vaccinology appreciably. Things that were challenging vaccine targets in the past

by lvs 6y ago

While this is indeed a new vaccine modality, it doesn't change the dynamics of vaccinology appreciably. Things that were challenging vaccine targets in the past will likely remain challenging.

hobofan 6y ago
Doesn't it change the dynamics insofar as that you have a straightforward path from virus -> its mRNA blueprint, without more specialized and likely costly engineering of e.g. a adenovirus? This should then allow for broader protection against viruses with many strains e.g. a HPV vaccine cocktail that protects against all ~100 known strains vs. just the 9 it currently does.
- raducu 6y ago
  Some influenza antibodies destroy certain neurons in your brain and you develop narcolepsy. This is both true for natural infection and first generation vacines. Later generation vaccines avoid this by not presenting certain proteins. My point is, you can't just include hundreds of protein variants without a lot of trials.
  - hobofan 6y ago
    I'm not suggesting to include new strains on the fly while they are discovered without trials. The same way they had to do trials for Gardasil-9 after already having Gardasil, they could do the same just with a wider cocktail. In the optimal case you would attempt the 100+ cocktail and don't have any unreasonable side effects from them. Of course if there is a single variant in there that causes side effects you would need a ton of trials to triangulate which one causes them, but there is no guarantee that that is necessary or that you wouldn't run into that variant when you just adding 5 new variants in an iteration.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Do you have a reference for this? It was my assumption too, reading about the Pandemrix vaccine, but I didn’t find any dependable references for this.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Even if he is wrong about how it works, because of the potential for unknowns they need to study it in a trial. There is a lot we don't know about biology.

by lvs 6y ago

While this is indeed a new vaccine modality, it doesn't change the dynamics of vaccinology appreciably. Things that were challenging vaccine targets in the past will likely remain challenging.

hobofan 6y ago

Doesn't it change the dynamics insofar as that you have a straightforward path from virus -> its mRNA blueprint, without more specialized and likely costly engineering of e.g. a adenovirus? This should then allow for broader protection against viruses with many strains e.g. a HPV vaccine cocktail that protects against all ~100 known strains vs. just the 9 it currently does.

raducu 6y ago
Some influenza antibodies destroy certain neurons in your brain and you develop narcolepsy. This is both true for natural infection and first generation vacines. Later generation vaccines avoid this by not presenting certain proteins. My point is, you can't just include hundreds of protein variants without a lot of trials.
- hobofan 6y ago
  I'm not suggesting to include new strains on the fly while they are discovered without trials. The same way they had to do trials for Gardasil-9 after already having Gardasil, they could do the same just with a wider cocktail. In the optimal case you would attempt the 100+ cocktail and don't have any unreasonable side effects from them. Of course if there is a single variant in there that causes side effects you would need a ton of trials to triangulate which one causes them, but there is no guarantee that that is necessary or that you wouldn't run into that variant when you just adding 5 new variants in an iteration.
- beagle3 6y ago
  Do you have a reference for this? It was my assumption too, reading about the Pandemrix vaccine, but I didn’t find any dependable references for this.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Even if he is wrong about how it works, because of the potential for unknowns they need to study it in a trial. There is a lot we don't know about biology.