91–100 of 115 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This leaves out the part where they were already working mRNA vaccines for other diseases, like influenza. They repurposed that work, much the same as moderna did to make their vaccine.
That's still lightning fast by any measure. Being able to turn your tools to a new problem rapidly is a credit to you and the tools.
I know that they've made HIV a chronic condition rather than a deadly disease, but I'd still like to see it eradicated with a vaccine. Same for herpes and viral hepatitis. I hope they tackle all those in due time.
And HPV
Some (girl)friends of mine have taken it at their own cost, of around usd$1000 (in Europe).
Cancer vaccines aren't unheard of or completely crazy - there's a Glioblastoma (GBM) cancer vaccine that's pretty far in development by Canadian bio VBI Vaccines that may see approval soon, upon completion of their phase 3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine "It is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 70% of cervical cancer, 80% of anal cancer, 60% of vaginal cancer, 40% of vulvar cancer, and show more than 90% efficacy in preventing HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NYT article I linked to actually has two pages. The second page goes into more details on cost. Here's a direct link to both pages of the article: https://archive.md/Fwyo0 Here's the relevant quote: > The Pennsylvania researchers said they were surprised to find any big drug company interested in their work, because a new batch of T-cells must be created for each patient — a far cry from the familiar commercial s…
Wow, thanks! $20k is lower than I expected! I guess when they add in the other costs it will be a fair bit higher, but still.
Also there are biohackers who synthesize their own insulin and even COVID-19 vaccines and test it on themselves. Their work may cause them more harm than good, but it's their bodies and they're free to experiment on it however they choose. When somebody has a terminal illness and is facing imminent death the risk calculus is very different where even taking the bargain basement biohacker version of a medication may make sense. (Though obviously this particular treatment is a bit different because it uses a modified HIV virus)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NYT article I linked to actually has two pages. The second page goes into more details on cost. Here's a direct link to both pages of the article: https://archive.md/Fwyo0 Here's the relevant quote: > The Pennsylvania researchers said they were surprised to find any big drug company interested in their work, because a new batch of T-cells must be created for each patient — a far cry from the familiar commercial s…
Wow, thanks! $20k is lower than I expected! I guess when they add in the other costs it will be a fair bit higher, but still.
Cancer vaccines aren't unheard of or completely crazy - there's a Glioblastoma (GBM) cancer vaccine that's pretty far in development by Canadian bio VBI Vaccines that may see approval soon, upon completion of their phase 3.
And the HPV vaccine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine "It is estimated that HPV vaccines may prevent 70% of cervical cancer, 80% of anal cancer, 60% of vaginal cancer, 40% of vulvar cancer, and show more than 90% efficacy in preventing HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're trying to do a cancer vaccine, not treatment for those afflicted with cancer already
How would a cancer vaccine work? A mRNA-based proofreader?
In fact, the body does this regularly. Cells frequently mutate to divide uncontrollably in the body, but are nearly always suppressed by the immune system. It is only when the tumor somehow manage to bypass the immune system or the immune system is sufficiently weakened that cancers can spread.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"proof of concept on the safe use of mRNA." Until about a year ago, potential treatments took 5-10 years of safety testing before general population use. This stuff takes time for things like antibody-dependent enhancement to be found. What we do know is those who are obese have bad outcomes to C19. I am not obese, got it a couple months ago, and recovered with just home rest. Now I test positive for the antibodies.
Gonna need a citation on ADE taking time to discover. It’s typically caught in trials and we can run trials much faster during a pandemic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine that the tumour would quickly evolve to repress expression, mutate, or completely delete the targetted neoantigen as the neoantigen is probably not required for viability.
This is absolutely true, and actually the mutations are usually quite diverse already, so it's thought that multiple neoantigens should be targeted simultaneously. However, no matter how much you target, the diversity and evolution of cancer always wins. Therefore, the goal is not to target every last cancer cell, but to trigger enough of an immune response across a wide enough variety of mutations for the B cells to…