[HN Gopher] Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad, sustain...
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Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad, sustained protection
in mice
Author : gmays
Score : 116 points
Date : 2022-07-11 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.gsu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.gsu.edu)
| netcraft wrote:
| Can anyone speak to these nanoparticles and why this technique
| hasn't been seen before? Maybe more generally why we haven't
| targeted this part of the virus that doesnt change?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Without really knowing the first thing about it, I'm curious if
| the nanoparticles discussed here are the same or similar to the
| "virus-like particles" that Medicago describes as being the key
| to their vaccine technology:
|
| https://medicago.com/en/our-technologies/virus-like-particle...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus-like_particle
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905985/
|
| (Disclosure: I was a participant in the phase 3 trial of
| Medicago's CoVLP/Covifenz vaccine)
| Moto7451 wrote:
| This is all state of the art research. It's the same reason we
| didn't have mRNA vaccines 10 years ago.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| And from what I understand, mRNA vaccine technology was
| languishing before the urgency of Covid put their development
| into overdrive.
| sterlind wrote:
| We didn't know what part of the virus would change before the
| virus started changing. A small number of patients developed
| broadly-neutralizing antibodies (bnABs), which not only wiped
| out Covid classic, but kept working well against the other
| variants too. Once we found out what part of the spike protein
| those antibodies bound to, then we knew what to target. But
| it's still not easy to raise antibodies to recognize specific
| sites on a protein - the more "context" you include, the more
| likely it is that your immune system will find another, less
| effective, handle on the protein to grab and call it a day.
|
| I suppose we knew about pan-coronavirus conserved sites before,
| but it (imo) would have been too risky to try targeting those
| sites with the first mRNA vaccines - one experimental
| technology at a time.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| If targeting pan-coronavirus conserved sites works out, it
| will be big news for other vaccines in the future.
| sp332 wrote:
| Each nanoparticle holds 20 antigens next to each other. The
| researchers say this provides a stronger signal to the immune
| system that there is a danger. https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-
| events/nanoparticle-flu-vacci...
| blueflow wrote:
| Why should i believe this vaccine protects me and people around
| me from Influenza? Will it be better than the COVID vax that
| ended up only reducing the risk of a bad case?
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I don't understand the purpose of this question.
|
| If you're looking for an excuse not to take it when it
| eventually becomes available, that's a long way off yet and
| seems a silly thing to worry about.
|
| What other possible points for such a question... are you
| suggesting they just shouldn't even be researching?
|
| In what way is a treatment that helps even 10% not better than
| nothing, when nothing is the only other option in existence?
|
| I see no admirable way to unpack this question.
| dannyw wrote:
| The newsworthy aspect of this is "broad, sustained
| protection". The parent comment directly questions this, and
| it's a very reasonable thing to ask; particularly with recent
| events showing a questionable job at it.
|
| If you make a claim for a new solar cell technology that
| doesn't degrade over a century, people can question whether
| that claim is true or not, without implying that solar
| technology should not be researched.
|
| And there's certainly no need to speculate on people's
| intentions, like questioning if someone is making excuses for
| big oil.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I consulted my official reference for reasonable and it
| didn't decree either comment reasonable or unreasonable.
| It's almost like it's not even much of a statement.
| gruez wrote:
| >Why should i believe this vaccine protects me and people
| around me from Influenza?
|
| You shouldn't. It has only been tested "in cell culture and in
| mice". Its efficacy in humans will be determined in _human_
| clinical trials.
|
| >Will it be better than the COVID vax that ended up only
| reducing the risk of a bad case?
|
| This table shows that it's still effective "against symptomatic
| disease" and "against infection".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID-...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Reducing the risk of a bad case _is_ protecting people from the
| virus.
| birdmanjeremy wrote:
| TBF, that'd still be a win if it worked for all variants of the
| flu.
| puffoflogic wrote:
| Frankly, it would have been idiotic for vaccine makers not to use
| the New and Improved (TM) definitions of vaccine effectiveness to
| promote old vaccines as more effective now.
| large-if-true wrote:
| Animats wrote:
| _" The nanoparticle vaccine was tested in cell culture and in
| mice."_
|
| OK, progress, but not that far along yet.
|
| There's a similar COVID vaccine, from Caltech and Oxford, in
| about the same stage of development.[1] Phase I testing in humans
| should start some time in the next year.
|
| This is encouraging.
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/e2-80-98all-in-
| one-...
| hahaitsfunny wrote:
| bobbyasdfasdf7 wrote:
| hahaitsfunny wrote:
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for using HN primarily for
| ideological and political battle. That's not allowed
| here, regardless of what you're battling for or against.
| It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it
| is for.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that
| you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site
| guidelines. You can't do that here, regardless of how wrong
| someone is or you feel they are.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that
| you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| [deleted]
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| If anything I'd be worried that big pharma tanks anything not
| in their financial interests, like permanent prevention.
| hahaitsfunny wrote:
| Eh, they still get funding and money from rich elites and
| the government either way. Many board members in big pharma
| served in the government and many former politicians serve
| on the boards of big pharma. The conflict of interests is
| amazing, but I'm pretty sure they all made out well enough
| on COVID.
|
| Klaus Schwaab and the WEF too, since they were running
| virtual scenarios on zootonic novel coronaviruses breaking
| out and mandatory lockdowns, etc... a year before COVID-19.
| Then he wrote that whole COVID-19 the great reset book.
| Seems like everyone's making a killing off these vaccines,
| and the world population, are well, just dying.
|
| From a virus, which still hasn't been confirmed, to not
| have originated in a lab. Or a group of experimental
| vaccines rushed into production. One of the two.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| The amount of 'HIV cures' compared to drugs that actually hit
| the market are disproportionate. I don't fully know what causes
| trials to fail but I would assume failure rate is pretty
| substantial, so I won't hold my breath.
| Animats wrote:
| An HIV vaccine is really hard.[1] The human immune system is
| very poor at fighting HIV. People do not recover on their
| own. There is no had HIV, recovered, now immune state.
|
| COVID and influenza are much easier, because the human immune
| system can fight off those viruses reasonably effectively and
| most people recover. A vaccine just has to replicate having
| had the disease and recovered.
|
| Here's an article from _The Lancet_ on the many COVID
| vaccines using this approach now in test.[2]
|
| [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-developing-
| hiv...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602808/
| amluto wrote:
| > COVID and influenza are much easier, because the human
| immune system can fight off those viruses reasonably
| effectively and most people recover. A vaccine just has to
| replicate having had the disease and recovered.
|
| Really?
|
| Influenza mutates and mostly escapes natural immunity all
| the time. Essentially everyone has had the flu and
| recovered, and a lot of people (and almost all children?)
| have been vaccinated. Yet the flu still circulates. The
| whole point of this new vaccine candidate is to produce
| _better_ protection than natural immunity or the current
| vaccine.
|
| COVID is so new that the endgame isn't really known, but
| reinfections with different variants seem to be fairly
| common. Certainly the other (non-COVID) human coronaviruses
| reinfect humans regularly. (They account for 1/3 of common
| colds by estimates I've seen, and there are only four of
| them. The average person gets many more than 12 colds in
| their life.)
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > Influenza mutates and mostly escapes natural immunity
| all the time
|
| You're right, it does, and the parent comment is also
| right that your immune system will fight it and win again
| most of the time.
|
| HIV is special because your body will fight it, but lose
| the battle given enough time. The Human Immunodeficiency
| Virus targets your immune system, and gradually weakens
| it until you can't fight even common fungus spores.
|
| COVID storms the gates and the soldiers fight it back,
| HIV sneaks into the castle and attacks the barracks in a
| war of attrition.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| None of this is relevant. They were responding to a
| comment bringing up how many hiv vaccines appear and fail
| trial. The flu and covid are different from hiv in the
| way this comment describes.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| HIV is unusually difficult to target and mutates very
| rapidly. It also has the ability to intertwine itself with
| DNA in CD4 lymphocytes and then start reproducing after a
| long period of dormancy[1]. Other viruses don't do that.
|
| [1] https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2020/04/hiv-hides-in-
| imm....
| derefr wrote:
| Is what HIV does with lymphocytes, similar to what herpes
| does with nerve cells?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| No HSV works differently[1], it produces chemicals that
| surpasses the immune response.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex_virus#Imm
| une_ev...
| foobiekr wrote:
| Do we know other viruses don't do that or just don't know
| of other viruses that do?
| nickmyersdt wrote:
| > Other viruses don't do that.
|
| ...yet
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I mean other retro-viruses exist, but but only HIV and
| HTLV-1/2 make humans sick.
| dang wrote:
| OK, we've inmiced the title above. Thanks!
| TheBlight wrote:
| mabbo wrote:
| Sign me up. I'll gladly be in the human trials for this.
|
| The potential benefits to society are _huge_. Economic impact:
| How many people each year have to take time off work because they
| 're sick with the flu? Societal impact: how many people each year
| die years earlier than they otherwise would have from the flu?
|
| And if it means I also don't spend 72 hours sweating in bed with
| fever dreams every year (as I do), I'm _down_ to be the first one
| lined up to get the jab.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| How many people die or have medical problems because of
| vaccines? I know many unfortunatelly. I rather have cold once
| in three year than risk damaging my immune system by injecting
| uknown chemicals.
| chowells wrote:
| I would recommend getting a vaccine instead of unknown
| chemicals. Then you know what it is and that it's helpful.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| If you are in clinical trials, then it is not vaccine by
| definition.
| fithisux wrote:
| Me too
| mabbo wrote:
| You don't. You know losers who blame their problems on
| whatever Fox News told them was bad. What the heck does
| "unknown chemicals" even mean? You don't know what the
| chemicals in a fresh-picked Apple are- does that mean you
| shouldn't eat it until you get a bio-chem degree?
|
| Trust in experts is being purposely eroded by the right so
| that they can manipulate you into listening to them instead
| of people who actually know things.
|
| I don't want to get the vaccine just for myself. I want to
| help test it so that we can assess it's safety, and then get
| it out publicly fast. I want to see lives saved.
|
| And if I benefit from it, all the better.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Your lack of respect for others is astonishing.
|
| Consume wherever you want, just don't be arrogant if others
| won't.
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