3 ms·

Dr. Friedman and team at UPenn are working on exactly this. An mRNA based prophylactic (and also potentially therapeutic) vaccine for HSV. I think they were ori

Dr. Friedman and team at UPenn are working on exactly this. An mRNA based prophylactic (and also potentially therapeutic) vaccine for HSV. I think they were originally using some other form of vaccine (a protein vaccine?), but then realized that mRNA was a lot better. He has posted a few video updates on the progress, and it looks good, but of course it hasn't entered phase 1 yet (supposed to start this year).

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Yes there are multiple efforts with that one being I think the most promising. They hope to cure the first humans of HSV in 2024. I believe they have all the funding they need for now, having raised over $500k. More details on this subreddit and specifically this sticky: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
  It's interesting how small some of those grants and funding pools are compared to what you see in startup land. Maybe this is just the economics of viral research, but you'd think that with plenty of people out there willing to pay to cure themselves of HSV, or prevent it, there would be more financial support. Yet, the people working on the problem have as much funding as the YC Standard Deal announced this month. I wonder why.
  - e4e78a06 5y ago
    Vaccines and cures deliver one time revenue, whereas treatments deliver perpetually recurring revenue. It's a well known market failure in healthcare.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I feel the same way. So much money gets thrown around to solve relatively trivial problems, but I suppose it is like a casino where you hope to win. Whereas no one funding this research expects a financial return. But you’d think that for example you could consider the tax payers as a body which would generally appreciate a cure to HSV. We could imagine the government funding such things. We just dropped an F-35 in the ocean in the South China Sea. I wonder how much research you could fund for the price of one of those.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    Yeah, after seeing game studios being bought for 64B dollars, how many HSVs could that cure?

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Yes there are multiple efforts with that one being I think the most promising. They hope to cure the first humans of HSV in 2024. I believe they have all the funding they need for now, having raised over $500k. More details on this subreddit and specifically this sticky: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...

8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
It's interesting how small some of those grants and funding pools are compared to what you see in startup land. Maybe this is just the economics of viral research, but you'd think that with plenty of people out there willing to pay to cure themselves of HSV, or prevent it, there would be more financial support. Yet, the people working on the problem have as much funding as the YC Standard Deal announced this month. I wonder why.
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  Vaccines and cures deliver one time revenue, whereas treatments deliver perpetually recurring revenue. It's a well known market failure in healthcare.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I feel the same way. So much money gets thrown around to solve relatively trivial problems, but I suppose it is like a casino where you hope to win. Whereas no one funding this research expects a financial return. But you’d think that for example you could consider the tax payers as a body which would generally appreciate a cure to HSV. We could imagine the government funding such things. We just dropped an F-35 in the ocean in the South China Sea. I wonder how much research you could fund for the price of one of those.
- xeromal 5y ago
  Yeah, after seeing game studios being bought for 64B dollars, how many HSVs could that cure?