Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#41

Post by sgift » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

naveenspark wrote: post #28

ig1 wrote: post #23

Given the high cost (hundreds of millions) of taking a vaccine through clinical trials, FDA approval and production I'm curious why the choice to go the non-profit route. Is the growth plan to raise the money from large donors (Gates foundation, Wellcome Trust, etc.) or to licence the technology to more traditional pharma firms ?

Most of the people who are living w/ HIV worldwide can't afford to pay for treatment. From our perspective it doesn't make sense to charge for something that the people who need it most just can't pay for. By making our project non profit we can focus on the real goal, which is ending HIV/AIDS and not creating ROI for shareholders. Yes we will need to raise significant funding over the lifetime of the project to comp…

Is there some special "trick" that makes your team/approach so efficient or (just) the usual ones, e.g. less overhead due to small size, less bureaucracy than big pharma and so on?

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#42

Post by naveenspark » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:05 PM UTC

Robin_Message wrote: post #25

icinnamon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. In this case, we're lucky enough to use an amazing clinic set up in Durban, South Africa, which has a ~15% prevalence rate of HIV.

This sounds great. I'm genuinely interested, how is the potential vaccine going to be presented to volunteers in Phase I? And do you also deliver a placebo vaccine for blinding? It seems like believing you are vaccinated would increase risky behaviour. This is bad in itself. It is also bad if the vaccine is only partially effective, since the risk effect might balance the vaccine effect. With a placebo, knowing you o…

Thank you for your support! Yes it will be presented as a double blind, placebo controlled study. Regarding the risky behavior point, this is a well known challenge with all vaccine studies. And yes telling people that they don't know whether or not they have the actual vaccine helps in mitigating the risk effect.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#43

Post by fsniper » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

naveenspark wrote: post #24

mef wrote: post #11

Does anyone know why this approach is "viewed as a rogue project by the immunology community"? Is it just because it's new, or is there something more fundamental that conflicts with established immunology?

Hi all, this is Naveen from Immunity Project YC team. The fact that we are using ML to identify epitopes that are the preferred targets on the virus for HIV controllers is key to what makes our project unique. This is a newer approach for developing a vaccine and therefore makes it "rogue."

By the way. That "rouge" approach is what would I have go through as a sysadmin if this was an computer related problem. I think you deserve to be a case study in immunology and be very very successful.

Sometimes thinking out of the box and letting go of established ways will lead to results.

Edit: Also in computer sciences we use differentiating between two known states to find out how to change on state to the other one perfectly. In immunology do you use similar approaches?

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#44

Post by jjoe » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:08 PM UTC

This is one of those times when you take a step back, reflect, and look at the big picture. However much excited I am about my project, I realize that the stuff these guys are working on hits all the right notes. And then some.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#45

Post by softbuilder » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #16

mintplant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The betterment of the world as a whole?

That's great, but the job of investors is to make money, not to better the world, isn't it?

s/make money/build value/g

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#46

Post by danielpal » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

This is a really interesting project. I have so many questions and it seems others too. It would be great to do an AMA on Reddit or something.

So one question: This "targetting capability" that HIV controllers have, which your goals is to give it to all of us, does it also have any other benefits? Does it also help protect us from other viruses?

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#47

Post by pg » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:16 PM UTC

edent wrote: post #32

FooBarWidget wrote: post #6

I don't get it, isn't the point of investing to get the investment back in many multiples? How do you get your investment back if it's a non-profit?

I assume it's a tax dodge of some sort. I'm sure that investments in non-profits can be offset against capital gains (or something like that). I'm not an investor and this isn't tax advice!

No, as far as I know we get no tax advantage from this beyond what anyone gets from making any charitable donation (the ability to deduct it).

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#48

Post by icinnamon » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:18 PM UTC

danielpal wrote: post #46

This is a really interesting project. I have so many questions and it seems others too. It would be great to do an AMA on Reddit or something. So one question: This "targetting capability" that HIV controllers have, which your goals is to give it to all of us, does it also have any other benefits? Does it also help protect us from other viruses?

We're absolutely planning on doing an AMA on reddit in the near future!

The "targetting capability", definitely does have implications for other types of viruses. While this vaccine focuses on giving the power of HIV controllers to everybody, other controllers do exist. For example, there may be controllers for other viruses like Hepatitis, HPV, Herpes, or even things like other viruses that cause cancer.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#49

Post by tbarbugli » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:22 PM UTC

mef wrote: post #11

Does anyone know why this approach is "viewed as a rogue project by the immunology community"? Is it just because it's new, or is there something more fundamental that conflicts with established immunology?

mainly because lots of money and time got wasted in finding a vaccine. HIV vaccine would be very very risky to use thats why research is looking for a cure

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#50

Post by andrewfong » Thu, Jan 23, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

From the FAQ: "But, there are certain spots on HIV that rarely mutate, and these are the same highly specific targets that controller immune systems already recognize naturally. Our vaccine trains your immune system to attack those weak spots so that the virus is crippled even when it mutates. In other words, our vaccine shows the prime targets to your immune system so that it does not have to waste time and energy trying to figure out which ones are the best points of attack."

How does the vaccine train your immune system? My (very limited) understanding of vaccines is that you would normally train the immune system to target these weak spots by creating an antibody that would bind to said weak spot. But from elsewhere on the page, it says that the project isn't working on an antibody approach. What am I missing?