Tag: vaccines
Past COVID infection ‘as good as vaccines’ at preventing severe illness
Bill Gates takes aim at Elon Musk: I’d rather fund vaccines than go to Mars
Bill Gates would rather pay for vaccines than travel to Mars
Why did CureVac stock slip today? Declining market for COVID vaccines
CureVac closes 29% higher on early Phase 1 data for modified mRNA vaccines
Meta won’t let staff discuss topics like abortion, gun control and vaccines at work
Meta employees were told that they should not discuss sensitive issues like abortion, gun control, pending legislation and vaccine efficacy at work. Fortune reported on these changes, citing a leaked internal memo from Lori Goler, head of people at Meta. TechCrunch confirmed the report with a Meta spokesperson. “As Mark mentioned recently, we need to […]
Meta won’t let staff discuss topics like abortion, gun control and vaccines at work by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
New body clock research could improve our response to vaccines
RCSI researchers found that our body clock changes the shape of mitochondria within certain cells, impacting our response to vaccines.
Read more: New body clock research could improve our response to vaccines
Beyond Spike Proteins: Researchers Suggest New Design for Longer Lasting Covid Vaccines:
“Now researchers at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland think they’ve found a new approach to vaccine design that could lead them to a long-lasting jab. As a bonus, it also might work on other coronaviruses, not just the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.”
The NIH team reported its findings in a peer-reviewed study that appeared in the journal Cell Host & Microbe earlier this month.
The key to the NIH’s potential vaccine design is a part of the virus called the “spine helix.” It’s a coil-shaped structure inside the spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it grab onto and infect our cells. Lots of current vaccines target the spike protein. But none of them specifically target the spine helix. And yet, there are good reasons to focus on that part of the pathogen. Whereas many regions of the spike protein tend to change a lot as the virus mutates, the spine helix doesn’t.
That gives scientists “hope that an antibody targeting this region will be more durable and broadly effective,” Joshua Tan, the lead scientist on the NIH team, told The Daily Beast….
A vaccine that binds the spine helix in SARS-CoV-2 should hold up for a long time. And it should also work on all the other coronaviruses that also include the spine helix — and there are dozens of them, including several such as SARS-CoV-1 and MERS that have already made the leap from animal populations and caused outbreaks in people….
Maybe a spine-helix jab is in our future. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s encouraging that scientists are making incremental progress toward a more universal coronavirus vaccine. One that could work for many years on a wide array of related viruses.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Vaccines to Treat Cancer Possible by 2030, Say BioNTech Founders
And though they partnered with Pfizer to ues the same approach for their Covid vaccine, “Now the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer and other tumour types.”
BioNTech has several trials in progress, including one where patients are given a personalised vaccine, to prompt their immune system to attack their disease. The mRNA technology being used works by sending an instruction or blueprint to cells to produce an antigen or protein. In Covid this antigen is part of the spike protein of the virus. In cancer it would be a marker on the surface of tumour cells. This teaches the immune system to recognise and target affected cells for destruction.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Prof Tureci said: “mRNA acts as a blueprint and allows you to tell the body to produce the drug or the vaccine… and when you use mRNA as a vaccine, the mRNA is a blueprint for the ‘wanted poster’ of the enemy — in this case cancer antigens which distinguish cancer cells from normal cells.”
Harnessing the power of mRNA to produce vaccines was unproven until Covid. But the success of mRNA vaccines in the pandemic has encouraged scientists working with the technology in cancer.
The Guardian notes that the couple said cancer-targetting vaccines could be available “before 2030”, though Özlem Türeci warns that “As scientists we are always hesitant to say we will have a cure for cancer. We have a number of breakthroughs and we will continue to work on them.”
BioNTech was working on mRNA cancer vaccines before the pandemic struck but the firm pivoted to produce Covid vaccines in the face of the global emergency. The firm now has several cancer vaccines in clinical trials.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.