It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#61

Post by l33tman » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

I'm not a virologist but this is clickbait I think, it does not take long to synthesis fragments of the spike protein for a traditional vaccine either or program the rhinovirus vector in a more modern vaccine. I don't think that really is the bottleneck. You still need a LOT of testing as the viral antigen you are trying to vaccinate against can have similarities to human proteins for example, and the antigen might simply be a bad antigen for immunization - and this requires a lot of testing and studies.

The normal yearly influenza vaccines are also fast for example because they are well known platforms and also the antigens repeat historically and are thus (relatively) well tested.

I guess my point is that the problem of the vector to get the antigen in contact with the immune system is orthogonal to the problem of selecting the antigen for overall cross reactivity and efficiency and the latter is still a difficult and timeconsuming problem.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#62

Post by pinusc » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #41

tzs wrote: post #31

The layman's explanation I've seen about how these mRNA vaccines work is that they get some of your cells to manufacture a protein that is characteristic of the virus, which the cells release and the immune system takes care of. Then later if you get the virus, the immune system already recognizes that protein and takes care of the virus. Question: why do we need to have our cells make the protein? Couldn't we synthe…

It's not just proteins. The cells infected with the mRNA present those proteins on the outside of the cell to be recognized by other cells which start a chain process. Skip to around 12:30 in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o He goes through the entire biochem process. Even the cells infected with the mRNA will need to be removed by the immune system using cytotoxic T-cells, so they need to get the ch…

That's not very true. Phase II trials are designed test safety, phasE III trials are designed to test efficacy. Statistics is advanced (and magic) enough that we're now reasonably sure that the vaccine has a 95% efficacy. That's not 'totally sure', we'll only be totally sure it works once everyone is vaccinated and the pandemic stops. But we _know_ it works, in the scientific-probabilistic meaning of knowledge.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#63

Post by aazaa » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #39

aazaa wrote: post #34

> They identified the sequence for the spike protein, plugged that into their vaccine platform, and voila – an mRNA vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Moderna zeroed in on the spike protein thanks th large amount of previous research on SARS-CoV-1. Vaccines effective in animal models of SARS were developed based on this approach starting around 2004: https://www.pnas.org/content/101/17/6641 The article continues:…

I understand why they went for the spike protein first, but now maybe they could try for something more generic, against all coronaviruses?

That would require the kind of understanding of viral vulnerabilities I'm thinking of. The same applies to any virus, of course.

To my knowledge, that kind of understand does not exist because coronaviruses have been largely ignored historically, with the exception of SARS and MERS.

And we've been trying for decades to get a broad-spectrum or even single-dose-forever vaccine for the flu, so far without much to show for it.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#64

Post by jiveturkey » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

seafoam wrote: post #8

I could write Twitter in a weekend.

why is this being downvoted? completely on point.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#65

Post by bluGill » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #32

Big pharma companies have wanted mRNA vaccines for years. Others have been developed and even gone through trails that never got approved for markets. There are also trials for therapeutics such as inhaled steroids; something doctors in certain regions have been prescribing off-label for months and claim to have very high success rates. Yet organizations like the NIH are saying they shouldn't be used until the trials…

A vaccine reduces the effects of moderate/severe Covid to zero. All other treatments mean at best time off of what I want to be doing while I'm treated. That is at best, the most likey case is you still get the bad side effects - including long-covid (whatever that is, science is still working that out), just a bit reduced. I'll take zero effects.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#66

Post by soperj » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #46

tialaramex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High lethality is often associated with reduced transmissibility. Which makes sense - dead people certainly aren't going to cough on you. In a Sci Fi movie maybe the virus has a long delay, you're infectious for a month with no symptoms, then drop dead in seconds. But in the real world that's less likely the more extreme it gets. One thing that did make this virus more dangerous was that many humans became infectious…

In many ways, this was a worst case scenario for countries without a history of fighting respiratory diseases. It’s lethal enough to rack up a significant body count, but “safe” enough for large portions of the population to disregard the risk and potentially transmit it. Oh, and it’s airborne and you’re infectious before you have symptoms. Ironically, a disease with a much higher case fatality rate probably would’ve…

You've got over 18000 people a week dying in the US from Covid-19. How many more people do you need?

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#67

Post by optimalsolver » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #6

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

They're very welcome to act as experimental guinea pigs for expedited medical treatments.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#68

Post by sgc » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

dontreact wrote: post #51

causality0 wrote: post #6

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

A friend of mine has a partner who works for them. She said that employees don't get a free vaccine. Obviously take this rumor with a grain of salt.

Sorry boss, I broke a vial.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#69

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #66

ashtonkem wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways, this was a worst case scenario for countries without a history of fighting respiratory diseases. It’s lethal enough to rack up a significant body count, but “safe” enough for large portions of the population to disregard the risk and potentially transmit it. Oh, and it’s airborne and you’re infectious before you have symptoms. Ironically, a disease with a much higher case fatality rate probably would’ve…

You've got over 18000 people a week dying in the US from Covid-19. How many more people do you need?

What a weirdly accusatory tone. For the record, I’m staying at home and I wear a mask. Save your accusations for those who actually advocate for behavior you disagree with.

My point is entirely that the perception of risk has had a huge impact on compliance for social distancing and mask wearing. The fact that 99% of those infected survive (age dependent) has had a negative impact on compliance. If this had been a pandemic with a higher CFR, then compliance would have been even higher. I have an extremely hard time imagining there being an anti-lockdown movement for an outbreak of Ebola, for example.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#70

Post by iskander » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #30

melling wrote: post #2

The technology was years in the making. DARPA was also involved. “In October 2013, DARPA awarded Moderna up to approximately $25 million to research and develop potential mRNA medicines as a part of DARPA’s Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics, or ADEPT, program”

Sure, and that website I made in 24 hours was only possible because of DARPA's funding of the first Internet and decades of efforts into programming languages, etc. The point being, if a novel deadly virus was discovered tomorrow, how fast could Moderna develop a potential vaccine?

It depends complete on what kind of virus it is. All of the interesting research required to hit "print" on mRNA-1273 was already done in MERS. It would have been surprising if the vaccine didn't work.

If a new pandemic emerges from a less well understood family of viruses for which we don't have any good preclinical vaccines, it could still take decades.

Sticking the genome into synthetic mRNA isn't the rate limiting step, it's knowing to target the spike protein, inserting the stabilizing proline mutations, &c and also having experience getting safe and protective responses from a similar vaccine for a related virus.