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Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

med.stanford.edu

71–80 of 159 posts

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#71
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also contains a harmless antigen, an egg protein called ovalbumin or OVA Here's hoping the final product doesn't have a side-effect of inducing an allergy to the main component of egg-whites. Although even if that happened... Would it only apply to the raw materials, as opposed to cooked products where the ovalbumin was denatured by heat? Edit: No, wait! What about "safe to eat" cookie-dough, which uses heat-tre…

And what about people who eat actual raw egg? I routinely eat freshly-made cake batter (made with raw eggs; I just clean the bowl, I don't actually gobble tons of raw cake batter), for instance. It's perfectly safe because I live in a country where they actually check eggs for salmonella before selling them and people routinely eat raw eggs on top of things.

Raw flour is just as dangerous. It can contain e coli and salmonella, among other bacteria.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#72
This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is worth it in the presence of a pathogen but not otherwise.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#74

What intrigued me the most is why their vaccine reduces allergic reactions too. If the allergic reaction is an immune response, why does administering the vaccine which increases immune response result in a decreased allergic reaction? I'd expect the opposite.

I'm pretty allergic most of the time (lots of birch cross allergies and dust mites), but sometimes when I'm sick the allergic reactions appear to go down. Allergies can be pretty weird.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#75

What intrigued me the most is why their vaccine reduces allergic reactions too. If the allergic reaction is an immune response, why does administering the vaccine which increases immune response result in a decreased allergic reaction? I'd expect the opposite.

They say so in the article but you need a teensy bit more to make the connection. Here's the ELI5 version and then a link to too much detail:

You can have a Th1 or a Th2 reaction. One produces one kind of reaction and the other produces a different kind of reaction. And they both inhibit the other. It's a mechanism whose purpose (to the degree purposes exist) is to identify which kind of problem you have and apply as much energy as possible to that because they each fight different kinds of enemies. You'll see in the article they say:

> Allergic reactions are caused by a type of immune response known as Th2 response. Unvaccinated mice showed a strong Th2 response and mucus accumulation in their airways. The vaccine quelled the Th2 response and vaccinated mice maintained clear airways

Neither of these are immune (haha) to causing problems. Th1 was historically associated with multiple sclerosis. Obviously if your detection mechanism is broken you will create more and more of the wrong kind because of the fact one kind can beat the other with numbers but also because the wrong one won't even get the mis-detected enemy (which might not even be an enemy - and be harmless) out.

The too-much-detail: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC27457/

> Th1-type cytokines tend to produce the proinflammatory responses responsible for killing intracellular parasites and for perpetuating autoimmune responses. Interferon gamma is the main Th1 cytokine. Excessive proinflammatory responses can lead to uncontrolled tissue damage, so there needs to be a mechanism to counteract this. The Th2-type cytokines include interleukins 4, 5, and 13, which are associated with the promotion of IgE and eosinophilic responses in atopy, and also interleukin-10, which has more of an anti-inflammatory response. In excess, Th2 responses will counteract the Th1 mediated microbicidal action. The optimal scenario would therefore seem to be that humans should produce a well balanced Th1 and Th2 response, suited to the immune challenge.

> Many researchers regard allergy as a Th2 weighted imbalance, and recently immunologists have been investigating ways to redirect allergic Th2 responses in favour of Th1 responses to try to reduce the incidence of atopy

There's a lot of detail to it. After all, it's an emergent evolved device that we carry, but that's the rough shape of it. You can create one kind of immune response and simultaneously shut down another kind.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#76

This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is…

Evolution just needs people survive long enough to reproduce. If they get sick afterwards, it doesn't care.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#77

as someone with chronic nasal allergies, would this work for me?

Depending on how bad it is for you, I can recommend thinking about turbinectomy. Had it done due to chronic, allergy related swellings, and it was life changing.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#78

This seems too good to be true. Respiratory infections kill and debilitate a lot of people. If cranking up the innate immune system all the time reduced illness with no downsides, you'd think evolution would have done it already, but it didn't, which makes me think there's probably a downside, and the fact that the innate immune system is only cranked up when a pathogen is detected is probably because the downside is…

Evolution just needs people survive long enough to reproduce. If they get sick afterwards, it doesn't care.

Unless they are contributing to the survival of their offspring.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#80
3M-052 again? Oh, for fuck's sake. We've been down this road for 15 years now. Every funder who learns about the interferon cascade gets a boner. And then they go to animal trials and meet disappointment. If these guys can get to an IND, good on them, but 3M is really licensing the shit out of this one.

Meanwhile, if you've got spare millions laying around, have a look at ENA Respiratory. They've already done a Phase 1 in Australia (entirely admissable for the FDA). Turns out hypoxia creates and anxiety and old people have most of the world's wealth, so COPD is a lucrative market.

Another super interesting one is Lumen Biosciences - can't make oil from algae at a viable price point, but for sure they can hit pharma price points, even food supplement price points.

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