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New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

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Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#111

Post by jcul »

simonask wrote: post #40
cogman10 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a solved problem if you are someone that knows you'll be exposed to HIV in the very near future and you have the money and wherewithal to purchase PrEP before that event (and you can plan the event 7 days out). The power of a vaccine is you can give it to adults and kids before they are sexually active and protect them, potentially, for the rest of their lives. I'd also be curious to know if the combination of A…

Ad-hoc use of PrEP just requires that you take a double dose 1 hour prior to potential exposure, and follow up with another double dose 24 hours later, at least with the versions commonly prescribed to sexually active groups in my area. I agree that a vaccine is another game-changer, but it’s extremely important that we don’t spread misinformation about the efficacy and convenience of PrEP. In developed societies, it…

Does this double dose completely prevent infection?

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#113

Post by whimsicalism »

cguess wrote: post #106
whimsicalism wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was explicitly referring to PEP. I'm not sure why you would make assumptions about where I have or haven't been when you have absolutely no information. PEP remains largely free in SSA post-USAID/PEPFAR cuts.

Ok... so you have to 1. Know you were exposed (many many many people don't know they're HIV+) 2. Have the means to go to a clinic within 72 hours 3. Have the social capacity to go to the clinic safely (in many parts of Sub Saharan Africa doing so would insult your partner) PEP is an emergency drug, not a prevention at all.

My understanding is PrEP is also free, but I'm less certain about that post-cuts.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#114

Post by alittlebee »

RGS1811 wrote: post #3

While HIV vaccine research is an exciting field, it's worth pointing out that halting HIV transmission is, practically speaking, a solved problem with oral and injectable reverse transcriptase inhibitors. The ongoing loss of life and health due to HIV could be stopped if we cared enough to invest resources in wide-scale PrEP availability and public health education. Waiting for an HIV vaccine is the domain equivalent…

My hiv exposure was from an SA, I wasn’t on Prep. This will still save lives!

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#115

Post by vasco »

philipallstar wrote: post #110
epistasis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is in fact panic that teens are not having enough children, because that's where we have seen big drops... This whole "panic" seemed weird from the start, but once it becomes clear that it's from the lack of teen pregnancies it takes on an even creepier Epstein-like oddness.

No, it's from the cost of living being so high that people are delaying having kids.

Worldwide the main thing that correlates to having less kids is being more educated. High cost of living correlates with more kids, not less.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#116

Post by mullingitover »

mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #68
iandanforth wrote: post #20

The most interesting point of the article for me is that this vaccine appears to be a series of shots which act as a curriculum for the immune system. Each one slightly different and targeting a different stage of B-cell development. I've never thought of vaccine series working like that, so it was a new and impressive idea.

Well, they kind of all work that way, it's just that most of the curriculum occurs naturally through interactions with wild pathogens

From what I understand, random interactions with wild pathogens can prime the immune system in the wrong way, leading it down the wrong path. This is why some people can get lucky with immunity and be super resistant to flu, because they happened to luck into a response that targets a common factor in most flu strains. Other people have bad luck and target some area that mutates frequently, and they proceed to get walloped by every flu strain, every year.

This is why it's hard to make a 'super vaccine' for flu, becuase it takes many rounds of shots to retrain some people's immune systems once they've latched on to the wrong recipe for antibodies.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#117

Post by Night_Thastus »

MostlyStable wrote: post #99
epistasis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is in fact panic that teens are not having enough children, because that's where we have seen big drops... This whole "panic" seemed weird from the start, but once it becomes clear that it's from the lack of teen pregnancies it takes on an even creepier Epstein-like oddness.

It is entirely possible to believe multiple things at once: 1. The drop is fertility is bad for society 2. The drop in teen pregnancy is good, despite it's contributions to 1 3. We should try to fix 1. without undoing 2.

I agree, but I don't think #3 is possible. For a variety of reasons, both biological and societal, the older people get the less likely they are to have kids, and fewer of them.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#120

Post by dekhn »

christkv wrote: post #71
iandanforth wrote: post #20

The most interesting point of the article for me is that this vaccine appears to be a series of shots which act as a curriculum for the immune system. Each one slightly different and targeting a different stage of B-cell development. I've never thought of vaccine series working like that, so it was a new and impressive idea.

This is the way a lot of modern cancer vaccines are being developed. The idea is to create custom vaccines in the future targeting the patients specific cancer. So they are therapeutic vaccines. Obviously some cancers cannot be reach by a vaccine or are so aggressive that they overwhelm the patient before they can help.

I work in pharma and a coworker asked if they could use my code (a model inference server). I asked what they were doing and it's an ML model for determining clinical dosing for a cancer trial. They sequence a person's cancer, then develop custom RNAs that train the immune system to eliminate that cancer (similar to https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-026-02769-3) which they inject into the patient.

I would like to thank all the scientists who have dedicated all their hard work and ingenuity to eliminating the impact of cancer. Also, fuck cancer.

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