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What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

blogs.sciencemag.org

61–70 of 152 posts

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#62
post #55
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear that mRNA holds any actual advantage for that low-hanging-fruit relative to other approaches though (e.g. protein subunit or DNA-based vaccines).

“The mRNA vaccine seems to be highly effective, two doses of that vaccine against this variant,” Gottlieb said, referring to the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. “The viral vector vaccines from J&J and AstraZeneca also appear to be effective, about 60% effective. The mRNA vaccines are about 88% effective.”

Higher efficacy does not have a 1-to-1 relationship with using mRNA technology. CureVac is an mRNA vaccine and is less than 50% effective. Novavax does not use mRNA and is more than 90% effective.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/14/health/novavax-covid-19-vacci...

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#63

I'm not clear on one thing from this: early on the author states that mRNA treatments do not create a permanent immune system memory response and need repeated treatments for continued response. But then when the author switches to the 'mRNA vaccines' section he instead refers to cancer treatment, finally circling back at the end to say 'infectious disease vaccines' are the low hanging fruit. Is that still referring…

the theraputics part is different than the immune system response part. they said in the theraputics part you don't get to use the immune system memory because the immune system memory is there to make a foreign enough protein that looks like the virus receptors so the body learns how to kill those proteins.

a therapeutic doesn't want you to kill the proteins it creates because the proteins created need to be able to go and do work on other cells... so it needs to look somewhat like "normal" proteins that a body would create naturally.

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#64
post #47
post #28

> So mRNA-based techniques have a lot of power and a lot of promise. But there’s definitely a low-hanging-fruit area here, and that’s infectious disease vaccines. Beyond that the promise holds up, big-time, but the difficulties mount up as well. It’s going to be a long story with a lot of plot twists, but I’m glad we’re telling it. Just want to emphasize the conclusion, because if you stop reading before the end, you…

It's not clear that mRNA holds any actual advantage for that low-hanging-fruit relative to other approaches though (e.g. protein subunit or DNA-based vaccines).

Correct me if i am wrong but those highly effective mRNA vaccines were created in a few weeks and relatively inexpensively... and can other protein targets can be repackaged easily by coding the mRNA unit into the already encapsulated delivery mechanism. is that not better than the other alternatives?

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#65

I'm not clear on one thing from this: early on the author states that mRNA treatments do not create a permanent immune system memory response and need repeated treatments for continued response. But then when the author switches to the 'mRNA vaccines' section he instead refers to cancer treatment, finally circling back at the end to say 'infectious disease vaccines' are the low hanging fruit. Is that still referring…

the theraputics part is different than the immune system response part. they said in the theraputics part you don't get to use the immune system memory because the immune system memory is there to make a foreign enough protein that looks like the virus receptors so the body learns how to kill those proteins. a therapeutic doesn't want you to kill the proteins it creates because the proteins created need to be able to…

Thanks. If I'm correct then the mRNA vaccine introduces proteins that reflect the virus and trigger the immune response? I think I was reading the article as mostly focused on vaccines, but it was focused on cancer treatment, hence my confusion...

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#66

I wrote a long essay about the same topic and came to similar conclusions as Derek Lowe: https://trevorklee.com/are-mrna-therapies-the-future-of-phar... One thing that I'd like to emphasize is how unbelievably tiny mRNA therapeutics have to be. It's probably around 30 mg, and it's hard to do it more than once every few weeks, at least judging by siRNA therapeutics (which have similar immune issues). 30 mg is really t…

Everyone seems to be focusing on your first comment at the dose must to be limited to 30 µg to avoid lipid toxicities. But the second issue is an even bigger issue—-the immune system will remove cells expressing proteins not found in the patient’s genome.

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same mRNA can be used by multiple ribosomes. More info and "photos": https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/54752/can-mrna-b...

Sure, it isn't destroyed immediately and the mRNA is used multiple time, but that's still ultimately the ribosomes damaging the mRNA from use. My question is around how they break down if there aren't ribosomes involved (ie. if the capsules above aren't opened because they weren't exposed to the light trigger).

Eventually the capsule will break down, be filtered out or be destroyed by the immune system and any RNA left will be broken down by RNAse.

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#68

“The huge success of the mRNA vaccination platform” Does anyone know what the agreed upon criteria for asserting the success of mRNA vaccinations is? Aren’t we anticipating an uptick in cases in the US as we approach winter? Why are we assuming success already?

[flagged]

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#69
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear that mRNA holds any actual advantage for that low-hanging-fruit relative to other approaches though (e.g. protein subunit or DNA-based vaccines).

Correct me if i am wrong but those highly effective mRNA vaccines were created in a few weeks and relatively inexpensively... and can other protein targets can be repackaged easily by coding the mRNA unit into the already encapsulated delivery mechanism. is that not better than the other alternatives?

No, the same advantages apply to the other alternatives I mentioned. If you have a target protein design ready, it can be readily plugged into mRNA, DNA, or protein subunit technology.

Re: What mRNA is good for, and what it maybe isn’t

#70
post #55
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear that mRNA holds any actual advantage for that low-hanging-fruit relative to other approaches though (e.g. protein subunit or DNA-based vaccines).

“The mRNA vaccine seems to be highly effective, two doses of that vaccine against this variant,” Gottlieb said, referring to the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. “The viral vector vaccines from J&J and AstraZeneca also appear to be effective, about 60% effective. The mRNA vaccines are about 88% effective.”

I'm talking about protein subunit and DNA-based technologies, not adenovirus viral vector. Protein subunit vaccines at least (e.g. the novavax and GSK vaccines) have proven themselves against COVID-19 as well.
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