5 ms·

It also mentions that this is a "gene therapy". That implies a whole mess of biological and regulatory hurdles to jump that will exponentiate the time before s

by crusso 14y ago

It also mentions that this is a "gene therapy". That implies a whole mess of biological and regulatory hurdles to jump that will exponentiate the time before something like this would be available.

jessaustin 14y ago
exponentiate By this, do you mean "increase", or should we expect e.g. a process that typically takes eight years to take 64 years or 512 years?
- crusso 14y ago
  Maybe instead of taking two years, it will take four, or eight. Would you be surprised if it took ten to sixteen? But then again 64 years might be just about right. How long ago was it again when we were all supposed to be driving flying cars? I remember in 1992 reading about "holographic credit card-sized storage" cards that were heading to market in "just a couple of years". Engineers, biologists, and others seeking funding often way underestimate how long things take.
  - maxerickson 14y ago
    The wikipedia article you linked says there is a gene therapy on target for commercial sale in the EU in 2013.
    - crusso 14y ago
      "a gene therapy"... I don't think anyone feels that gene therapy delivery mechanisms are going to be plug and play. Until we master the technology, I'm sure that each attempt at gene therapy will be specifically geared to solving a single genetic problem. It's like in software development. Often introduction of new complexities doesn't create a linear amount of work to write and maintain it. Depending upon the coupling of the complexity, the extra effort could be multiplicative or exponential. Seriously, how long have we been hearing about "cures for AIDS". A couple of decades? Now, this particular vapor cure has an extra dependency upon an unspecified gene therapy. It's naive to think that an actual cure based upon this research isn't much further away than the article hints at.
      - maxerickson 14y ago
        There isn't any reason anyone should spend much time listening to what I have to say about it, but I would expect gene therapy delivery to be increasingly plug and play. My reasoning being, the safety issues are concentrated around transmission so insertion strategies that have a robust story there will be copied. Especially if they are effective. Also, the 'obvious' gene therapy targets tend to be similar mechanisms (approximately because they are available at the level of understanding we have right now). I don't actually expect this to be available as a treatment any time soon, but I think confident pessimism is probably at least as naive as confident optimism (simply because estimating what is possible is so hard).
conspiracynutt 14y ago
this is never going to happen.... its too fucking profitable to have someone pulling 40,000 dollars of medications for 40 years, that is largely government subsidized vs. a one time 10,000 dollar fix. i mean yall realize how outstandingly different those two numbers are right? 40,000 * 40 = 1.6 million dollars in government subsidized money PER person... vs 10,000.... the former is literally 16 times more profitable... no way these industries back off that business model. ( i realize im just guessing at what a one time gene therapy fix would have to reasonably cost, but you could double it or triple it, quintuple it and its still significantly less profitable than the former. )
- streptomycin 14y ago
  By that conspiracy theory logic, I'd expect that no pharmaceutical company has ever done a clinical trial on a gene therapy based cure for a disease. But in reality... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy
  - conspiracynutt 14y ago
    i don't think you're seeing the key distinction.... that AIDS treatments are LARGELY GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED, which means guaranteed payments. this is no conspiracy... this is how it fucking is. in reality. in plain view.
  - crusso 14y ago
    C'mon, his handle is "conspiracynutt". I think it's probably his job to swear that there's a drug company conspiracy that aims to prevent finding the cure for any disease that they can profit from instead.
    - conspiracynutt 14y ago
      well im not even sure its a drug company conspiracy... i mean it certainly benefits drug companies no doubt... but it also benefits government research scientists.... it benefits DeBeers mining company because they can blame workers illness from dust in mines on HIV instead of on the mining.... it benefits a countless number of lawyers... it benefits all the HIV clinics and their employees.... how about all the people in academia that "research" this stuff and receive NIH grants to do so? i mean the benefit is a lot more spread out than just being of benefit to drug companies.

by crusso 14y ago

It also mentions that this is a "gene therapy". That implies a whole mess of biological and regulatory hurdles to jump that will exponentiate the time before something like this would be available.

jessaustin 14y ago

exponentiate By this, do you mean "increase", or should we expect e.g. a process that typically takes eight years to take 64 years or 512 years?

crusso 14y ago
Maybe instead of taking two years, it will take four, or eight. Would you be surprised if it took ten to sixteen? But then again 64 years might be just about right. How long ago was it again when we were all supposed to be driving flying cars? I remember in 1992 reading about "holographic credit card-sized storage" cards that were heading to market in "just a couple of years". Engineers, biologists, and others seeking funding often way underestimate how long things take.
- maxerickson 14y ago
  The wikipedia article you linked says there is a gene therapy on target for commercial sale in the EU in 2013.
  - crusso 14y ago
    "a gene therapy"... I don't think anyone feels that gene therapy delivery mechanisms are going to be plug and play. Until we master the technology, I'm sure that each attempt at gene therapy will be specifically geared to solving a single genetic problem. It's like in software development. Often introduction of new complexities doesn't create a linear amount of work to write and maintain it. Depending upon the coupling of the complexity, the extra effort could be multiplicative or exponential. Seriously, how long have we been hearing about "cures for AIDS". A couple of decades? Now, this particular vapor cure has an extra dependency upon an unspecified gene therapy. It's naive to think that an actual cure based upon this research isn't much further away than the article hints at.
    - maxerickson 14y ago
      There isn't any reason anyone should spend much time listening to what I have to say about it, but I would expect gene therapy delivery to be increasingly plug and play. My reasoning being, the safety issues are concentrated around transmission so insertion strategies that have a robust story there will be copied. Especially if they are effective. Also, the 'obvious' gene therapy targets tend to be similar mechanisms (approximately because they are available at the level of understanding we have right now). I don't actually expect this to be available as a treatment any time soon, but I think confident pessimism is probably at least as naive as confident optimism (simply because estimating what is possible is so hard).

conspiracynutt 14y ago

this is never going to happen.... its too fucking profitable to have someone pulling 40,000 dollars of medications for 40 years, that is largely government subsidized vs. a one time 10,000 dollar fix. i mean yall realize how outstandingly different those two numbers are right? 40,000 * 40 = 1.6 million dollars in government subsidized money PER person... vs 10,000.... the former is literally 16 times more profitable... no way these industries back off that business model. ( i realize im just guessing at what a one time gene therapy fix would have to reasonably cost, but you could double it or triple it, quintuple it and its still significantly less profitable than the former. )

streptomycin 14y ago
By that conspiracy theory logic, I'd expect that no pharmaceutical company has ever done a clinical trial on a gene therapy based cure for a disease. But in reality... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy
- conspiracynutt 14y ago
  i don't think you're seeing the key distinction.... that AIDS treatments are LARGELY GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED, which means guaranteed payments. this is no conspiracy... this is how it fucking is. in reality. in plain view.
- crusso 14y ago
  C'mon, his handle is "conspiracynutt". I think it's probably his job to swear that there's a drug company conspiracy that aims to prevent finding the cure for any disease that they can profit from instead.
  - conspiracynutt 14y ago
    well im not even sure its a drug company conspiracy... i mean it certainly benefits drug companies no doubt... but it also benefits government research scientists.... it benefits DeBeers mining company because they can blame workers illness from dust in mines on HIV instead of on the mining.... it benefits a countless number of lawyers... it benefits all the HIV clinics and their employees.... how about all the people in academia that "research" this stuff and receive NIH grants to do so? i mean the benefit is a lot more spread out than just being of benefit to drug companies.