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What can mRNA treat next?

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Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#121
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 ?

You mean a vaccine?

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#122

There are a lot of folks excited about mRNA as a "programming language" for the body. And it kind of is, but it's more complicated than that. The critical thing is that mRNA is extremely immunogenic -- that is, it provokes a strong immune response. Makes sense, since evolutionarily when we had little particles delivering RNA strands to our cells, they we viruses. So, that's great for vaccine production. Not so great…

I thought they solved that by replacing U by 1-methyl-3'-pseudouridylyl in mRNA vaccines? I can imagine it's not great for vaccines either, you want the immune system attack the spike the mRNA codes for, not destroy the mRNA before it can do it's thing. https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source...

You also don't want to activate an innate response our bodies have when virus attack is detected: cells churn out enzymes that chop up RNA.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#123
post #2

I am so excited for the prospect of mRNA treatments, especially in the field of auto immune conditions like multiple sclerosis. Those scientists are heroes.

I haven't read anything related to treating autoimmune diseases with mRNA, that would be quite exciting. Do you happen to have a reference for this? I have Ulcerative Colitis, which is a form of an autoimmune disease. A vaccine as a cure would be a game changer.

Maybe something like that is relevant: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6525/145. There's also a bit more context here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00880-0.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#124
post #73

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…

One more piece of this is they endlessly mutate, I don't think in reality there is a limit. Most mutations probably don't help the virus proliferate, might cause it to not be effective. Eventually the shape of a new one, what your body is looking for in it's remembered virus history will change enough that it can't be detected. We see this in real time with the cv19 variants. My mental model of this (I am in software so I welcome corrections to the applicability) is it's like antivirus in software - the bad guys making viruses keep trying new variations on old ones, switching what the protection software is looking for so they can get around detection methods, as well as trying to find new holes.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#125
post #64
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

Plus a flu vaccine: > mRNA vaccines [...] generate a much stronger immune response than responses that are generated to the protein in a normal flu vaccine [...] > One limitation of the current flu vaccines is that they take about six months to develop, meaning scientists must choose which strains they think will be prevalent in the next flu season — even before the current one is over. So by the time the vaccines ar…

It seems like with HIV they can simply sequence the prevalent evolutionary outcome in your body within a month and give your body the blueprint to destroy that version

What typically happens with HIV is that the body kills most of it initially, but the remaining ones keep rapidly evolving until an iteration evades your immune response, this takes about 12 years. Seems like an mRNA vaccine could be done every 3 years for individuals and either completely eradicate the HIV presence in the body or do it once every 12 years for a reset

Let me know if I fundamentally misunderstand something

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#126
#ExplainLikeImFive

Could somebody explain to me what a PVC (Personalized Cancer Vaccine) is? Like what is the personalized part in there? Is there really a realistic scenario in which we'll get some regular vaccination and then we'll be cancer free in the future?

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#127
post #105

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.

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

It's still very costly, and carries a long recovery period. Your head will look quite gnarly. Of course we never see that because all the celebrities that do can afford to stay out of the public eye for extended periods.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#128

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.

That’s not an outlandish number; retail price of the HPV vaccine in developed countries is about 200 euro a dose (though in practice usually paid by health services). They get a lot cheaper once out of patent, of course.

Re: What can mRNA treat next?

#130
post #126

#ExplainLikeImFive Could somebody explain to me what a PVC (Personalized Cancer Vaccine) is? Like what is the personalized part in there? Is there really a realistic scenario in which we'll get some regular vaccination and then we'll be cancer free in the future?

Ok, so cancer is essentially a blanket term for describing that you have a group of cells in your body doing uncontrollable runaway mitosis (replicating themselves). But the thing is that it's caused by hundreds of different mutations to your cells in thousands of combinations. So developing a single way to combat all of this is super hard. But if we can identify your particular set of mutations and train your body to attack cells with those, we can get rid of your cancer and prevent it from returning. There are a few strategies for this and it's how some of the most incredible cancer therapies of the last few years work...those are just only applicable to certain very specific mutations.
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