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Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

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Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#11

Post by thesis »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted all much… well actually no it’s pretty obvious.

I think you’re right though. The current Covid-19 vaccines are proven to lose efficacy over time. Will the same thing happen with this one as well? It’s a good question.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#12

Post by abeppu »

I'm a bit confused by the timing of this. Here's a press release from only a couple months ago, in which a Moderna partnership on an mRNA vaccine showed some benefit in macaques, but mostly in delaying infection (i.e. most macaques in the treatment group still got SHIV). Only two of seven in the treatment group actually remained uninfected. It sounded like researches wanted to refine and validate their protocol before moving to human trials.

> “We are now refining our vaccine protocol to improve the quality and quantity of the VLPs produced. This may further increase vaccine efficacy and thus lower the number of prime and boost inoculations needed to produce a robust immune response. If confirmed safe and effective, we plan to conduct a Phase 1 trial of this vaccine platform in healthy adult volunteers,” said Dr. Lusso.

I interpreted "If confirmed safe and effective" to mean that more animal tests would happen.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/experimental-m...

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#13

Post by luckydata »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

There's a difference between "someone" and "no one" and "everyone". Someone with an engineering education should be able to understand that very easily, it's a shame you don't.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#14

Post by dogma1138 »

echelon wrote: post #8
rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

70% prevention is better than 0%, and something tells me that it will see a much higher rate of adoption than the Covid vaccine.

PREP already gives you good prevention for this to work it needs to be both a therapeutic vaccine at least at stages at which PEP is no longer effective as well and or as being at least as effective as PREP whilst being more cost effective as an overall treatment.

Also there is no chance that this would have a higher adoption rate than COVID unless it turns out to give 100% life time immunity and would end up being part of the National vaccination program world wide.

This likely would have the same usage as PREP/PEP today so at risk individuals and a post exposure treatment.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#15

Post by luckydata »

thesis wrote: post #11
rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted all much… well actually no it’s pretty obvious. I think you’re right though. The current Covid-19 vaccines are proven to lose efficacy over time. Will the same thing happen with this one as well? It’s a good question.

because the point he's making is wrong. Vaccines are doing a fantastic job at slowing down the progression of the virus which is key to keep mutations at bay. No vaccine is 100% effective, but even 80% effectiveness radically changes the dynamic of a pandemic, it's so easy to see that I don't understand what can lead someone to deny this fact besides bad faith.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#16

Post by helloworld »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

As I understand it, the reason an HIV vaccine has been so difficult to create is that HIV mutates so easily. I understand the basics behind how mRNA vaccines are generated, but I don't understand why this approach would be expected to have any more success in evading the high mutation potential of HIV than other vaccine types. After all, it was even a concern with new coronavirus variants that the original Moderna va…

"Prof. William Schief explains how the novel #HIV #vaccine being tested in human clinical trials can trigger the right #Bcells of the immune system to achieve the much sought after broadly neutralizing #antibodies."

https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch/status/13581208549709127...

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#17

Post by spamizbad »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

As I understand it, the reason an HIV vaccine has been so difficult to create is that HIV mutates so easily. I understand the basics behind how mRNA vaccines are generated, but I don't understand why this approach would be expected to have any more success in evading the high mutation potential of HIV than other vaccine types. After all, it was even a concern with new coronavirus variants that the original Moderna va…

One reason is that mRNA vaccines can be developed much faster than traditional vaccines. So the idea is you have a better chance of "outrunning" a strain.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#18

Post by adamrezich »

echelon wrote: post #8
rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

70% prevention is better than 0%, and something tells me that it will see a much higher rate of adoption than the Covid vaccine.

what makes you think so? how could the market for this be greater than the market for the covid vaccine? the number of people susceptible to covid is much greater than the number of people susceptible to HIV.

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#19

Post by cdtwigg »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

As I understand it, the reason an HIV vaccine has been so difficult to create is that HIV mutates so easily. I understand the basics behind how mRNA vaccines are generated, but I don't understand why this approach would be expected to have any more success in evading the high mutation potential of HIV than other vaccine types. After all, it was even a concern with new coronavirus variants that the original Moderna va…

I am not an expert, but there has been a lot of hope recently that because we have much better understanding of protein structure (e.g. https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behi...) and because mRNA allows us to tightly control the genetic sequence, there is hope we could target some part of the virus that _is_ well-conserved across variants. e.g.: https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/feature/preventin...

Re: Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

#20

Post by iqanq »

echelon wrote: post #8
rubyist5eva wrote: post #6

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

70% prevention is better than 0%, and something tells me that it will see a much higher rate of adoption than the Covid vaccine.

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