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Making Vaccine

lesswrong.com

331–340 of 378 posts

Re: Making Vaccine

#331
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homemade vaccines are not contagious (just stating the obvious).

So? I’m not worried about the effects on others if I squirt peptides and chitosan up my nose. I’m worried about the effect on me. A homemade vaccine is both unlikely to be effective (and therefore do nothing for others) and probably more likely to harm me personally than covid. It’s certainly the greater harm for most people.

The risk of permanent smell changes, possible neurological changes, and a chance of hospitalisation and death from COVID is unlikely to be smaller than ingesting a microscopic quantity of a peptide.

Re: Making Vaccine

#332
> The large majority of the cost (about $850) was the peptides. These are the main active ingredients of the vaccine: short segments of proteins from the COVID virus. They’re all I know nothing about making vaccinations, but what would happen if you made a vaccine with a huge number of random protein segments? Would it prime your immune system to make you immune to several yet to be discovered viruses? Or it's just useless and/or dangerous to do this?

Re: Making Vaccine

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is probably that as a hobbyist you can only perform "N=1 experiments", and even without a control.

This appears to be an "open source science" project. https://radvac.org/a-homepage-section/ What you can do is conduct experiments, and report back what you find. If enough people do that, then together one can get usable n.

Note the long disclaimer, though, clarifying among many other things:

"Possible Risks and Uncertain Benefits

- Immediate allergic or other serious reaction

- Unforeseen long-term effects

- Instillation/administration of the vaccine in an inappropriate way or in an infected area might increase the risk of infection by enhancing viral entry into the body

- Benefits are uncertain. There are extensive published histories of the materials and procedures described on this site, but every novel vaccine should be considered experimental, with the possibility there will be no benefit.

- Even if there are signs of immune response there is no guarantee this response is indicative of protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection, or if protection is achieved, how long it will last.

- Even if the vaccine confers protection from the virus, certain methods for assessing protection–such as measuring antibodies due to previous infection–might not capture vaccine-induced immunity. In such cases, infection, and thus a positive test result, are unlikely to occur. Immunity passports and other privileges given to convalescents might be difficult to obtain for those with vaccine-induced immunity.

- Use of this vaccine may change the efficacy of any future vaccines you may take or that are administered to you, in unknown ways."

Re: Making Vaccine

#334

> The large majority of the cost (about $850) was the peptides. These are the main active ingredients of the vaccine: short segments of proteins from the COVID virus. They’re all I know nothing about making vaccinations, but what would happen if you made a vaccine with a huge number of random protein segments? Would it prime your immune system to make you immune to several yet to be discovered viruses? Or it's just u…

Chances are your random sequences don’t match up with any protein sequences that are externally accessible for real viruses.

Worst case, your random sequences matches a surface protein of your heart or liver and you trigger the immune system to attack an organ you can’t live without

Re: Making Vaccine

#335
post #260

This is an impressive amount of hubris. Does the author assume that all the certifications and testing stages were for show? I don't hold the highest view of LessWrong and the whole rationalist shtick. This post exemplifies why. Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make…

> can therefore harness the power of science to make a vaccine The title is misleading. He didn't really make the vaccine. The peptide sequences were designed by people with real biology credentials [1,2]. He ordered the peptides online. All he did himself was mix the peptides with some liquids [3] and spray his nose. [1] https://radvac.org/ [2] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Estep , https://en.wikipedia.…

So what he effectively did is create chitosan nanoparticles loaded with protein/carbon nanoparticles. This, I would imagine, is to allow the proteins to help bypass every protease, lysosome, and other defensive mechanisms that your body and cells have to protect against non-self proteins. These antigens, would then need to be presented by major histocompatability complexes to induce an immune response.

Re: Making Vaccine

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? I’m not worried about the effects on others if I squirt peptides and chitosan up my nose. I’m worried about the effect on me. A homemade vaccine is both unlikely to be effective (and therefore do nothing for others) and probably more likely to harm me personally than covid. It’s certainly the greater harm for most people.

The risk of permanent smell changes, possible neurological changes, and a chance of hospitalisation and death from COVID is unlikely to be smaller than ingesting a microscopic quantity of a peptide.

Disagree because you’re looking at it as if my options are get Covid or take homemade vaccine.

I can pretty easily avoid Covid for the couple more months it’ll take before I get a real vaccine, so it’s low danger for me. I’m also younger and healthier so my risk if I get it is quite small. High enough that I’m modifying my life to avoid it, but still pretty small.

And since I think the homemade Covid vaccine is unlikely to work, it is unlikely to decrease the odds of any of the things you mentioned anyway.

However squirting strange chemicals up your nose adds risk. People die from Neti pots and that’s just water.

If I’m currently faced with the choices of taking a homemade vaccine or not taking a homemade vaccine, the latter is clearly the less dangerous course of action. I think that’s the spirit of the comment to which we were all replying, and it’s the actual choice being discussed.

Now if I were an 85 y/o diabetic in a nursing home and there weren’t a vetted vaccine available that might be different.

Re: Making Vaccine

#337
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make a vaccine I didn't get this from the post at all -- they didn't invent the vaccine, they're just trying a protocol put together by some other biologists they seem to trust. The certifications and testing is not for show, and n…

Which is higher, the risk of the vaccine or the risk of COVID (and not just for you, for people you meet and possibly care about)?

I would say your risk in taking a homemade vaccine is greater than your risk from Covid if you don’t take the homemade vaccine. The homemade vaccine is unlikely to work so it won’t decrease covid risk much to you or others. The expected value is low.

It seems like it’s probably more likely to harm you, either directly because you’re shooting amateur-made chemicals up your nose, or indirectly because it might give you false confidence or make Covid hurt you more if you do contract it.

It’s an interesting idea to make your own vaccine, but clearly a bad one.

Re: Making Vaccine

#338
post #51

TLDR: I attempted to make a COVID vaccine. It was cheap. I have no proof that it worked. Other risks are unknown. The story reminds me of Barry Marshall, but with less science behind it. https://jamesclear.com/barry-marshall

Honestly i'd be pretty shocked if this actually worked.

It's looks like this is an open source science project originating near Boston. The white paper looks pretty thorough. I think they progress by means of people contributing back with their findings.

https://radvac.org/

I think the reason they're (clearly) not first is because it appears they had to scale their people-network as well as actually work on the vaccine. It doesn't help that biology and genetics skills are -as yet- a bit more rare than programming or editing skills yet.

Given the constraints I think they've gotten impressively far within 1 year.

Re: Making Vaccine

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this domain, in an ideal world, things "get made" through transparency, collaboration and scrutiny. Expertise is earned, not declared. You don't have to "wait", but you do need to trust. These people exist, and nearly anyone can join their ranks. It is indeed hubris to suggest expert-level ability is possible without the experience to back it up. Expertise in one domain does not confer expertise in another. Side n…

In this context he was simply following a protocol developed by established experts. No hubris involved, unless you think the experts also have hubris.

I'd suggest the hubris is in the author identifying as a "Ratonalist", cherry-picking the others whom he identifies as being in that same tent, and identifying with them while simultaneously declaring their efforts trivial, and over-emphasising quantitative measures at the expense of social considerations.

It's more evident in the comments on that page. From the author:

"I heard that the Moderna vaccine was designed in two days... But the deeper point which this is trying to operationalize is 'vaccine design just isn't that hard', in the sense that we don't need to test many designs to find one which works."

He seeks to demonstrate that an individual can 'operationalize' a vaccine i.e. manufacture personal doses. He describes his motivations: "we've all been complaining about how 'we' (i.e. society) should [make vaccines and tests], yet to a large extent they’re things which we can do for ourselves unilaterally" and says he hopes his efforts are "enough to go out, socialize, and generally enjoy life without worrying about COVID."

There's little consideration of 'should' only 'can'. Is it desirable to have people self-vaccinating then socialising? What might go wrong, and how might issues be mitigated? Are there broader issues with showing how to order items from Amazon then snort them in the name of self-vaccination?

I'm also unclear of the evidence supporting his assertion that these are things "we can do for ourselves".

His other motivations include this being "a fun project" and "build[ing] the habit of Doing This Sort Of Thing, so next time I hopefully do better". His self-awarded "D" grade is assigned on the basis that he is "embarrassed" at taking 4 months to notice radvac. He refers to this as poor "performance", but I'm not sure what performance is being measured: reading a news-feed or developing lab-skills?

He draws a lineage from "Benjamin Jesty, the dairy farmer who successfully immunized his wife and kids against smallpox the same year that King Louis XV of France died of the disease" through to himself, in the name of "Rationalism".

He describes his experience of the pandemic as "a near-perfect real world equivalent [of Jesty's experience] on super-easy mode with most of the work already done by somebody else". This makes his detailed description of the process he followed feel like a bald-faced humble-brag to me: here's all the juicy detail; I consider this to be 'super-easy mode'. I recognise that it might be self-deprecation and a recognition of standing on the shoulders of giants, but that just doesn't come across for me.

To be frank, and I recognise how subjective this is, the entire exercise whiffs of self-aggrandisement. A less contentious approach might have been to do the work anonymously and post on a pre-print server that permits anonymous papers, then optionally de-anonymise once results are collected.

The whole approach just rubs me the wrong way, and the "Rationalist" declaration exacerbates that.

At least he does mention the problem with expertise: "you need some level of expertise yourself before you can distinguish real experts from fake. There is no substitute for learning at least some amount oneself".

Re: Making Vaccine

#340

This is an impressive amount of hubris. Does the author assume that all the certifications and testing stages were for show? I don't hold the highest view of LessWrong and the whole rationalist shtick. This post exemplifies why. Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make…

Well, we are commenting on a site called "Hacker News"; so I guess you do have to expect and be tolerant of people who would try their hand at wetware hacking too.

I think a lot of people here probably think they're as smart or smarter than the average Google, Microsoft or Apple engineer. (Some readers are actually Google, Microsoft or Apple engineers, and some (others) may -indeed- be smarter).

Possibly some amount of hubris comes with the territory? ;-)

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