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New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

hms.harvard.edu

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Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#51

Post by neltnerb »

zaptrem wrote: post #45
ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

From the article: The researchers have applied for patents on both the antibodies and the mouse model used to produce them. They hope to see their work developed commercially. ... followed by This work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-021989), the National institutes of Health (NIAID Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development UM1-AI144371, P01 AI158571, Ma…

Alternatively, why don't researchers just take investment in place of grants?

Why not get both, I suppose..

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#52

Post by [deleted] »

wbl wrote: post #40
ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

From the article: The researchers have applied for patents on both the antibodies and the mouse model used to produce them. They hope to see their work developed commercially. ... followed by This work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-021989), the National institutes of Health (NIAID Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development UM1-AI144371, P01 AI158571, Ma…

Why would Pfizer drop a few billion on getting the vaccine to market if the funders would then relicense it?

[deleted]

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#53

Post by hammock »

jjcon wrote: post #7

Can anyone with more knowledge on this topic than me (I’m no expert) assuage my fears: by giving human populations such artificial resistances (non-live vaccines) we run the risk of selecting for viruses that are even harder for even our own immune systems to detect and destroy. Current Covid strains don’t seem all that bad, basically everyone I know has been infected now. Might we run the risk of making things worse…

No post body was provided.

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#54

Post by heavyset_go »

peteradio wrote: post #34
heavyset_go wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does answer the question. Evolution is the result of mutations propagating through reproduction. The more copies of a virus replicating, the higher chances of mutation causing a more deleterious and/or virulent variant of the virus. As the number of viral copies and replications approaches zero, the chances of a worse strain of the virus spreading also approaches zero. Vaccines reduce viral load and spread, thus r…

Where does the worry come from regarding drug resistant bacteria why would that worry not have a viral analog?

Drug-resistant bacteria are the result of misuse and incomplete use of antibiotics, and the environmental spread from waste of antibiotics. Also, bacteria can share genes horizontally, meaning resistance in one species can transfer to another quickly.

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is mainly from misuse in humans and animals, and disease spread between the two, along with ineffective waste treatment and the leaching of antibiotics into the environment[1]. About 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are used in agriculture[2], where they are given to animals not to treat infections, but to prevent them and to stimulate growth. Over 60% of infectious diseases in humans are spread from animals, and 75% of new diseases in humans are spread from animals[3]. Shooting a few micrograms of vaccines into humans' arms is nowhere near the scale of antibiotic use or accumulation in the environment.

It's also possible to achieve herd immunity with vaccines, whereas antibiotics do not leave lasting immunity. To be effective, antibiotics must be taken when there's a bacterial infection, and their effectiveness diminishes as they leave the body.

Are these "worries" consistent? Where is the worry that polio vaccination might create worse strains of polio?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638249/

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#56

Post by robbiep »

maegul wrote: post #31
robbiep wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is climbing mount improbable. And natural selection (even in the face of in this case intelligently designed selectors) funnels organisms into potential dead ends which they can’t evolve out of - they’ve gone up the ‘north face’ and in order to reach fitness in the face of their selectors, they actually need to be on a completely different mountain. An antibody that dead ends all current evolutionary trends…

So, from the article: > Once the virus has bound to ACE2, it must complete a final step: fusing its outer membrane with the membrane of our cells. This throws the door open to infection. Using a novel live-cell imaging platform, Alex Kreutzberger, HMS instructor in pediatrics at Boston Children’s, and Tomas Kirchhausen, professor of cell biology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and professor of pediatrics at Boston…

> If mutations at this site are possible, how would this be an evolutionary deadens in a way that the current evolutionary dynamics of the virus are not?

* Surely a lack of mutations at this site, on their face, imply only that there is no evolutionary pressure on the site and its phenotypes, and, that mutations at this site are as viable as anywhere else?

* Or, is it possible that the lack of mutations (presuming that this is very accurate) indicates an evolutionary pressure to maintain functionality that is sensitive to failure due to even minor mutations or deviations in functionality?*

the answer is that something that is so highly conserved across so many variations is mission critical. Mutations occur through replication everywhere, randomly. Highly conserved means that a change is a breaking change, severely impacting fitness, if no mutations have been observed elsewhere. Ie to extend the analogy, that point is the 'mountain' SARS-CoV-2 has decided to scale.

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#58

Post by mlyle »

maegul wrote: post #31
robbiep wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is climbing mount improbable. And natural selection (even in the face of in this case intelligently designed selectors) funnels organisms into potential dead ends which they can’t evolve out of - they’ve gone up the ‘north face’ and in order to reach fitness in the face of their selectors, they actually need to be on a completely different mountain. An antibody that dead ends all current evolutionary trends…

So, from the article: > Once the virus has bound to ACE2, it must complete a final step: fusing its outer membrane with the membrane of our cells. This throws the door open to infection. Using a novel live-cell imaging platform, Alex Kreutzberger, HMS instructor in pediatrics at Boston Children’s, and Tomas Kirchhausen, professor of cell biology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and professor of pediatrics at Boston…

> * Or, is it possible that the lack of mutations (presuming that this is very accurate) indicates an evolutionary pressure to maintain functionality that is sensitive to failure due to even minor mutations or deviations in functionality?

Yes -- A lack of mutations on the site is a strong hint that it is functionally important. If virions with mutations at this site were equally fit, you'd expect more variation.

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#59

Post by robbiep »

jjcon wrote: post #36
robbiep wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is climbing mount improbable. And natural selection (even in the face of in this case intelligently designed selectors) funnels organisms into potential dead ends which they can’t evolve out of - they’ve gone up the ‘north face’ and in order to reach fitness in the face of their selectors, they actually need to be on a completely different mountain. An antibody that dead ends all current evolutionary trends…

How are we sure it is a dead end and how sure are we? It sounds as if this would put extraordinary selective pressures on the virus, if we are wrong I’d fear we would just make things worse

How are we sure and how are we sure

This is basic evolutionary theory that has been subsequently played out in both the lab and in the wild. You can't prove a negative but your requirement for reassurance will only be assuaged by furthering your own understanding of evolution on a molecular level, it doesn't seem like anything I could say to you in a reply to an internet post would make the slightest bit of difference to your skepticism and you'd have to get the basic grounding in yourself. The full answer would require 3-4 years of fulltime study, the shorter answer could be arrived at by reading the blind watchmaker and climbing mount improbably, two highly accessible books on evolutionary biology

Re: New antibody neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 variants in lab tests

#60

Post by feet »

zaptrem wrote: post #45
ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

From the article: The researchers have applied for patents on both the antibodies and the mouse model used to produce them. They hope to see their work developed commercially. ... followed by This work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-021989), the National institutes of Health (NIAID Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development UM1-AI144371, P01 AI158571, Ma…

Alternatively, why don't researchers just take investment in place of grants?

Because that is a sign of bias in research
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