3 ms·

My, admittedly limited, understanding is that the immuno response to a natural infection is "broader" and targets more of the viral proteins ("we show that mult

My, admittedly limited, understanding is that the immuno response to a natural infection is "broader" and targets more of the viral proteins ("we show that multiple neutralizing epitopes, within and outside the receptor binding domain (RBD), are variably targeted by human polyclonal antibodies") while the vaccine only introduces a single or small number of proteins for the immune system to respond to. If that is the case then we would want vaccines that include more mRNA instructions for creating more unique viral proteins to expand the number our immune system has been exposed to. I have no idea how challenging that is.

gatronicus 5y ago
> I have no idea how challenging that is. Technically it's easy, Moderna already has multi target vaccines (for other diseases), one with 7 different targets. It can be as easy as literally creating 7 different vaccine liquids and then mixing them all in a single vial. The problem is deciding what to put in, what ratio, possible side effects, etc... Lots of combinations which can mean lots of expensive and slow clinical trials.
esyir 5y ago
That's roughly my understanding of this as well, pulling from whatever I remember from old immunology classes. The human adaptive immune response is massively parallel, and you can liken it to multiple progressive selection rounds for antibody candidates. As such, it is intuitive that this process would create a set of antibodies that targets not just a single antigen in multiple ways, but multiple antigens in multiple ways, resulting in more robust response (see polyclonal b-cell response) As for the latter, the issue, as already stated, is in understanding the side effects and efficacy profiles of said vaccine. Clinical trials are long and expensive processes.

3 ms·

My, admittedly limited, understanding is that the immuno response to a natural infection is "broader" and targets more of the viral proteins ("we show that mult

by eightysixfour 5y ago

gatronicus 5y ago
> I have no idea how challenging that is. Technically it's easy, Moderna already has multi target vaccines (for other diseases), one with 7 different targets. It can be as easy as literally creating 7 different vaccine liquids and then mixing them all in a single vial. The problem is deciding what to put in, what ratio, possible side effects, etc... Lots of combinations which can mean lots of expensive and slow clinical trials.
esyir 5y ago
That's roughly my understanding of this as well, pulling from whatever I remember from old immunology classes. The human adaptive immune response is massively parallel, and you can liken it to multiple progressive selection rounds for antibody candidates. As such, it is intuitive that this process would create a set of antibodies that targets not just a single antigen in multiple ways, but multiple antigens in multiple ways, resulting in more robust response (see polyclonal b-cell response) As for the latter, the issue, as already stated, is in understanding the side effects and efficacy profiles of said vaccine. Clinical trials are long and expensive processes.