5 ms·
I have been noting down pandemic silver linings, and this is one did not occur to me. To take your point further, given the workhorse industrialization the mRNA
by haltingproblem 5y ago
I have been noting down pandemic silver linings, and this is one did not occur to me. To take your point further, given the workhorse industrialization the mRNA platform has been given during Covid, turning it on the other infectious diseases might mean millions or tens of millions lives saved over the coming decade or two. A (pseudo) black swan of a pandemic leads to a white swan!
- cyberlurker 5y agoA Malaria vaccine would be awesome. I have no idea if that’s possible though. I’ve known people with Malaria and have personally taken the (expensive) pills to protect myself. It all sucks.
- notriddle 5y agoMalaria is a parasite, not a virus. Doesn't it have to be a virus for mRNA vaccines to make sense?
- rst 5y agoThere are vaccines against bacterial infections (tuberculosis, for example).
- Vecr 5y agoThe tuberculosis vaccine might not be the best example, it lacks efficacy in some places, for an unknown reason or reasons, such as the US and India.
- selimthegrim 5y agoDoes India still use BCG?
- valarauko 5y agoYes, India still uses BCG.
- WalterSear 5y agoIt doesn't even have to be an exogenous disease. There are trials being scheduled for their use in autoimmune disease, IIRC, by sensitizing tnf-regulator cells to autoantigens (or perhaps consequent interleukins, I forget). The have already been used to cure the mouse model of MS.
- Fomite 5y agoNope! Just needs to be something with a stable, targetable antigen.
- aledalgrande 5y agoNot virus only, Moderna is working on a mRNA therapy for cancer for example. [1] [1] https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline/therapeutic-areas/mrna-personalized-cancer-vaccines-and-immuno-oncology https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline/therapeutic-areas/mrna-pe...
- inglor_cz 5y agoA mRNA vaccine basically sics our immune systems on something. Our immune systems are fairly adaptable and will kill even cancer cells if they can tell them apart from healthy tissue.
- amluto 5y agoThe hard part about vaccinating against Malaria isn’t the vaccine platform — it’s finding an antigen to target that has the desired effect. But there is progress on that front: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/03/01/a-malaria-vaccine-candidate https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/03/01/a-... The candidate does indeed use mRNA, but it seems like it could have used older technology too.
- elliekelly 5y agoIf you’ve written a blog post or even a comment here that mentions some of those silver linings I would be very interested to read the others!