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What can mRNA treat next?

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Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#101

Post by lazide »

rocgf wrote: post #49
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it’s maybe pure vanity and I definitely wish to see cancer cured first but I think the psychological impact of hair loss, especially in young people (<25), is often underestimated.

For better or worse, it's not the importance of a disease per se that drives innovation, it's money. So assuming that hair loss is the kind of problem that would get people to spend money, then we might see some progress here.

There are many possible ways to quantify importance? And many many stakeholders with often conflicting ideas, demands, and influence.

If someone is spending money on something, they are voting that it is important FOR THEM - and more important than whatever else they would have done with the money.

If politicians/government aren’t spending money on something - despite saying it’s important - that is a very clear signal that their words and their actions do not align. We have words for that too.

If they don’t even bother saying words about it, then that is a clear signal not enough pressure is being applied to make it even a pretend priority no?

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#102

Post by da_big_ghey »

toast0 wrote: post #88
blumomo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HIV is a known virus for many decades. Now that mRNA was released in a rush, why would it suddenly cure HIV?

Now that mRNA is productionized (or at least on the path towards it), and has been used in hundreds of millions of people without apparent major negative short term effects, the barrier is lower for other targets which no longer have to prove the whole technology is safe, effective, and producable. We have two examples of safe (so far), effective and mass produced mrna vaccines; so it's probably easier to get funding…

how much money in cure HIV? largest endemic area is probably subsaharan Africa, not much in money there. In western nation it mostly is disease for gays or ocasional unlucky blood transfusion receive person [0]. i am not say that cure for it is bad - it is in obvious good - why did Moderna make choice for to research this cure in specific over other?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/factsheets/cdc-msm...

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#103

Post by amluto »

cannaceo wrote: post #71
lisper wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by the time the vaccines are ready for distribution, a different strain may have emerged as the better target I have never understood this. How many strains are there? I thought there were only like 4 or so. Why don't they just do them all every year?

There are subtypes of each. Influenza A and B cause the seasonal flu. The subtypes are named by their hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). E.g. H1N1, H5N9, etc.

And those subtypes themselves are constantly mutating. Look at actual WHO vaccine recommendations:

https://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations...

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#104

Post by missedthecue »

intricatedetail wrote: post #4

I would love that the state sponsored research into chronic pain. Big pharma has no incentive to find cure, they want to push a suite of addictive pills that ruin lives or they spend money to block medical cannabis. Millions of people suffer with no way out. Edit: why people downvote the truth? I guess none of you suffered this and I hope you will not, but silencing a voice like that is inhumane.

Gilead has made billions curing hepatitis c, so I think your theory is disproven.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#105

Post by fma »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24
dukeofdoom wrote: post #11

hair loss?

I know it’s maybe pure vanity and I definitely wish to see cancer cured first but I think the psychological impact of hair loss, especially in young people (<25), is often underestimated.

I don't have experience in this field...but w/ hair, someone can get grafts which supposedly look better than plugs from decades ago?

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#106

Post by entee »

lisper wrote: post #73
cannaceo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are subtypes of each. Influenza A and B cause the seasonal flu. The subtypes are named by their hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). E.g. H1N1, H5N9, etc.

OK, but that doesn't really answer my question. Turns out the answer can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/types.htm "There are four types of influenza viruses: A, B, C and D. Human influenza A and B viruses cause seasonal epidemics of disease (known as the flu season) almost every winter in the United States. Influenza A viruses are the only influenza viruses known to cause flu pandemics, i.e., gl…

I don't think that's quite right. Even if you have a flu strain with a particular name (H1N1) there are a number of variants within the H1 and/or N1 proteins that the vaccine will be targeted to as well, so the number is quite a bit larger than 198/131.

It's not that hard to make a new vaccine, the process for flu is very accelerated because they're just a variation on the original theme which has been proven to be safe (though unclear on effective until AFTER the flu season hits). If you think about it, we make a new flu vaccine every year, and develop it in 6 months. Each one contains a few guesses as to which of the flus are going to be an issue, it's not just one antigen in the vaccine. Those guesses are just that, an informed prediction, which is why the vaccines tend to be fairly ineffective (40-60%) at preventing disease altogether, though perhaps better at preventing serious disease.

Moderna is claiming to be quicker, so they'd have a more accurate read on what the REAL flu strain this year is going to be, and so it should be more efficacious. The key variable will be dosing. mRNA vaccines can only deliver a certain amount of mRNA so it might be impractical to deliver very many antigens at once. Also delivery issues, the current flu vaccine is super easy to make and deliver to patients, mRNA vaccines with their complicated cold chains aren't. Obviously it's not an impossible problem, but it's less convenient.

Time will tell, it's certainly very promising!

Helpful: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3619640/

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#108

Post by jcims »

inglor_cz wrote: post #96
CodesInChaos wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the same way that we look upon bacterial diseases: unpleasant, the threat of treatment resistance is there Those treatment resistances are quite different. Resistant bacteria spread to other people, while cancer is almost always limited to a single patient. So it the treatment works for a certain fraction of cancers, it'll stay at that level, unlike bacteria which become increasingly resistant over time. (I gues…

I know, it is an imperfect analogy. But thank you for noticing and explaining my shortcut to other readers. Cancers are very patient-specific, and the main threat with immunotherapy is that the targeted cancer adapts quickly enough to escape the immune system again.

>Cancers are very patient-specific, and the main threat with immunotherapy is that the targeted cancer adapts quickly enough to escape the immune system again.

(I'm just an interested party and don't have any formal training on the subject.) I'm sure there are technical terms for it, but from what I've read the lack of regulatory features in the replication process of cancer cells tends to accumulate more mutations and genetic damage through each generation. PARP-inhibitors, for example, help fight cancer by suppressing DNA repair enzymes and letting the cancer cells get into non-viable states more often than healthy tissue.

In general though, this genetic entropy/volatility creates a scenario where adaptations can happen quite quickly.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#109

Post by agumonkey »

ecedeno wrote: post #53

Moderna has a public development pipeline. It shows they are working on, among other things, an HIV vaccine and vaccines/therapies for multiple types of cancer. https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline

brings an odd question, will we have to have artifical exposure to diseases just to ensure our immune system is capable ?

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#110

Post by dehrmann »

lukeschlather wrote: post #68

Scientifically and medically, vaccines seem extraordinarily exciting as a simple tool that can permanently eliminate problems. Treatments sound very exciting if I were running a business, but scientifically less so. I'm really glad that we've developed these great mRNA vaccines, and I hope that a business drive for recurring revenue doesn't chase people back to merely looking for treatments.

Once drugs go off-patent, the subscription model is a lot less appealing. Even before then, allowing vaccines to sell for $200 per dose (I'm just making up this number) would encourage vaccine production. But you're right that this is an example of markets not doing the right thing, so it might take government, or even insurance company subsidies on vaccine development.
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