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

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

#131

Post by jlcx »

dnautics wrote: post #102
naveenspark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Hey Naveen, I know that there are some epitopes that can only be recognized if there's a weird domain swap that happens, causing antibodies to be "four-pronged" instead of "two pronged". I think it's a proline substitution in the conserved neck region. Did you screen out those epitopes from your ML? Also good luck! I'm chipping in now. I'm relaunching my own crowd-funded nonprofit research in the biomedical space (an…

Good luck with your relaunch! I'll look for it, so I can support it again!

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

#132

Post by kriro »

pg wrote: post #89
kriro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm blind or searchiotic but cliffs on what the other 6 are doing? I think YC is one of the few places that could actually disrupt the academic publishing and reputation-bargaining field so I'm hoping some nonprofit will tackle this eventually.

They haven't all announced we funded them yet, but another one that did today is Zidisha: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/23/zidisha-launches-a-kickstar... Incidentally, Scribd started out as a way to disrupt academic publishing. To do it they wrote a lot of stuff for handling PDFs, and as often happens in startups that became the tail that wagged the dog.

Looks pretty cool. Having lived in Africa for a bit I like this idea (and hope they can get around certain issues). Just created an account and completed a loan request by one of the borrowers (might be the first 0% loan I have ever given outside of my family) :)

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

#133

Post by jlcx »

cpursley wrote: post #54

I'm all for this; more power to them. However, HIV/AIDS is already very preventable and had been on the decline for a decade or more. I'd rather see something like this effort, but for cancer. A disease that affects many more people. Actually, what I really want to see it a focus on stopping poaching, whaling, habitat destruction and ocean acidification. Even with all the disease, humans don't seem to have issues rep…

Something like this, but for cancer? Here you go: http://www.indysci.org/project-marilyn.html

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

#134

Post by icinnamon »

icinnamon wrote: post #48
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.

Starting our AMA now! http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1w29dx/we_are_creating...

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

#135

Post by namenotrequired »

jacalata wrote: post #129
namenotrequired wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of non-profits that aim to make birth control more wide-spread, too. Do you have any other ideas how overpopulation can be tackled by a startup with purely legal methods?

I believe that decreased child mortality and increased education/self-sufficiency for women are two of the big triggers for reduced birth rates in developing countries; in other words, increase the chances that the kids they have will survive to support their parents, and decrease the need for mothers to be supported by their children/possibly increase the opportunity cost to them of having children (although I don't…

Good points, thanks! I now see that Bill and Melinda Gates addressed the same points in their annual letter:

http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-three

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