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Medicine United States Technology

Potential Vaccine Generates Enough Antibodies To Fight Off Virus (independent.co.uk) 120

Posted by BeauHD from the promising-findings dept.
Slashdot readers schwit1 and Futurepower(R) are sharing news about a potential coronavirus vaccine that has been found to produce antibodies capable of fighting off Covid-19. The Independent reports: The vaccine, which was tested on mice by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, generated the antibodies in quantities thought to be enough to "neutralize" the virus within two weeks of injection. The study's authors are now set to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for investigational new drug approval ahead of phase one human clinical trials planned to start in the next few months. [T]he Pittsburgh research is the first study on a Covid-19 vaccine candidate to be published after review from fellow scientists at outside institutions. The scientists were able to act quickly because they had already laid the groundwork during earlier epidemics of coronaviruses: Sars in 2003 and Mers in 2014. What's also neat about this potential vaccine is that it can sit at room temperature until it is needed and be scaled up to produce the protein on an industrial scale.

The fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny microneedles "inject the spike protein pieces into the skin, where the immune reaction is strongest," the report says. "The patch is stuck on like a plaster and the needles -- which are made entirely of sugar and the protein pieces -- simply dissolve into the skin." While long-term testing is still required, "the mice who were given the Pittsburgh researchers' Mers vaccine candidate developed enough antibodies to neutralize the virus for at least a year," reports The Independent. "The antibody levels of the rodents vaccinated against Covid-19 'seem to be following the same trend,' according to the researchers."
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Potential Vaccine Generates Enough Antibodies To Fight Off Virus More

Potential Vaccine Generates Enough Antibodies To Fight Off Virus

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  • Big Pharma (Score:1, Insightful)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

    Damn Pharma companies. They are the worst.

    • This isn't the website you're looking for.
      Move along.

  • "the mice who were given the Pittsburgh researchers' Mers vaccine candidate developed enough antibodies to neutralize the virus for at least a year," .

    Big Pharmas dream, the year vaccine. Gotta keep paying.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by nyet ( 19118 )

      Let me guess, you've got a cheap alternative you cooked up in your own multibillion dollar lab?

      • Let me guess, you've got a cheap alternative you cooked up in your own multibillion dollar lab?

        How does a Pharma company make more money? With a cure administered once or a treatment that needs to keep being paid for over and over for the rest of your life? Yep a repeated treatment is where the money is, and where the stable income flow is. Which do you think a Shkreli type pharma CEO would want?

        • How does a Pharma company make more money?

          By selling a product people want/need to buy.

          With a cure administered once or a treatment that needs to keep being paid for over and over for the rest of your life?

          Feel free to try and sell your yearly treatment when people can just buy my cure instead.
          Too greedy you get zero, welcome to a competitive market.

          • Feel free to try and sell your yearly treatment when people can just buy my cure instead.
            Too greedy you get zero, welcome to a competitive market.

            Competitive market? Then how did Shkreli (and others) get monopoly power over OUT OF PATENT drugs to charge prices only the very rich can afford?

            • Feel free to try and sell your yearly treatment when people can just buy my cure instead. Too greedy you get zero, welcome to a competitive market.

              Competitive market? Then how did Shkreli (and others) get monopoly power over OUT OF PATENT drugs to charge prices only the very rich can afford?

              Of course you don't have a free competitive market in drugs. But now you've been forced to admit where the problem actually lies. Maybe some one else will get it too.

              Let me know if you find an example of an OUT OF PATENT drug that just happens to be a vaccine for coronavirus.

    • see here [youtube.com]. I suspect they're still not, and if we dig in we'll find government grants paying for all this.

      I'm sure Big Pharma will be there to patent the results and sell it back to us, but that's really on us for letting them do it, isn't it?

  • Many things can go wrong so it is, unless shit really hits the fan, at best year away from approval unless the situation becomes even more desperate than it is now.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

      Many things can go wrong so it is, unless shit really hits the fan, at best year away from approval

      C19 is already killing 3000 people per day. It is past time to take our foot off the brake. We need to find a cure or vaccine. The emphasis needs to shift from caution to urgency.

      • Many things can go wrong so it is, unless shit really hits the fan, at best year away from approval

        C19 is already killing 3000 people per day. It is past time to take our foot off the brake. We need to find a cure or vaccine. The emphasis needs to shift from caution to urgency.

        Yeah. This could easily result in more deaths than World War II. Don't be flippant about this. This is the biggest crisis since then.

        I am in a high-risk population for bad complications to this disease, and probably a great many Slashdotters are. Come on, we don't generally lead the healthiest lifestyles.

        Give me one of those stickers now. I'll take my chances. Someone's got to be the test pilot for every new fighter jet design, right?

        • Don't be flippant about this.

          What is the proposed connection between people dying, and not being flippant?

          Does humor kill people, or make them feel better?

          Have you died of terror even before catching the pandemic?

          The Governor already told me what to do; be prepared to isolate for up two months, stay isolated unless you need supplies or are doing something important, don't panic, etc.

          There was nothing in the instructions about the death of humor.

          Oregonians are pumping their own gas. I saw what I thought was a cloud of locusts but don't

      • Are you suggesting we start mass immunizations before we know whether the vaccine kills more than it saves?

        • Are you suggesting we start mass immunizations before we know whether the vaccine kills more than it saves?

          I am suggesting that determining whether a promising candidate vaccine kills more than it saves can be done in a few weeks by testing on a few hundred people.

          The CDC estimate of 18 months is ridiculous.

          3000 people are dying every day. Next month, the death rate is forecasted to be 10,000 per day.

          Delaying a solution because we are fretting over a handful of lives is silly.

          The precautionary principle of "do no harm" needs to be abandoned. By far the most harm is caused by delay.

          • Re:Hope it works (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Send it to the newts ( 6273598 ) on Saturday April 04, 2020 @12:36AM (#59906988)

            The CDC estimate of 18 months is ridiculous.

            18 months is already far shorter than the many years it usually takes to develop and test a vaccine. That leads me to suspect they've already cut every corner they reasonably can.

            Delaying a solution because we are fretting over a handful of lives is silly.

            And how do you know it'll only be a handful, without adequate testing?

          • The precautionary principle of "do no harm" needs to be abandoned. By far the most harm is caused by delay.

            So, your previous assertion to this site...

            What was it, SHANGHAI BILL?

            It's a wash.

            • Never wash your hands in a wet market, and never ask why not.

              No, those are not croutons. Keep walking.

          • Re:Hope it works (Score:4, Informative)

            by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday April 04, 2020 @05:43AM (#59907302)

            You should know that an untested vaccine design can make things worse right?

            For example, previously designed HIV and Dengue fever vaccines actually increased susceptibility and made things worse -- and it wasn't found out instantly.

          • ...The precautionary principle of "do no harm" needs to be abandoned. By far the most harm is caused by delay.

            In these troubled times, you're right.
            To retask Oscar London's famous line, "Kill as Few Patients as Possible."

          • Are you suggesting we start mass immunizations before we know whether the vaccine kills more than it saves?

            I am suggesting that determining whether a promising candidate vaccine kills more than it saves can be done in a few weeks by testing on a few hundred people.

            I worry about getting enough recruits for the dozens, or maybe hundreds of projects needed to test the various possibilities and combinations of chemicals. As a class, the poor are a logical pool of testees, a pool that is indeed increasing, perhaps logarithmically. That would certainly work, at a certain cost. Somewhat more economical would be prisoners, I suppose, with the added benefit that verbal persuasion would not be needed for recruitment.

            The precautionary principle of "do no harm" needs to be abandoned.

            While I agree that governments should abandon this maxim, I d

      • Many things can go wrong so it is, unless shit really hits the fan, at best year away from approval

        C19 is already killing 3000 people per day. It is past time to take our foot off the brake. We need to find a cure or vaccine. The emphasis needs to shift from caution to urgency.

        That's what I thought too at first.
        Make sure you know which is the brake and which is the accelerator first though before you start stomping on something.
        Thanks again ranton [slashdot.org]
        Search for "vaccine-induced enhancement of viral infections" for more info.

        • Credit to ranton, next time please directly include this very interesting quote:

          The primary danger of a partially tested vaccine is the likelihood of vaccine-induced enhancement of the viral infections. This is the most significant reason these vaccines need to be tested thoroughly (or at least the most significant reason for a coronavirus vaccine). Four categories of infections where this is particular problematic are flavi-, paramyxo-, lenti-, and coronavirus. HIV vaccines have similar problems as well.

      • I take it you are volunteering to be a test subject?

      • Yeah, but you don't want to skip phase 1 clinical trials, that is where you determine that the substance won't kill people.

      • The news here is full of stories of local old guys who recovered.

        One was a 104 yo WWII veteran.

        It is a bad time to be sick with something else, though. Don't get sick for a few months.

    • Lets just give it to CowboyNeal now and see what happens. We don't have a year.

  • How did they test it on mice? I thought only people could get CoVID-19?

    And if the vaccine works on mice then still it has to be tested on people.

    • Re:Mice are not people (Score:5, Informative)

      by LetterRip ( 30937 ) on Friday April 03, 2020 @07:41PM (#59906426)

      How did they test it on mice? I thought only people could get CoVID-19?

      Transgenic mice are created that have the same receptors (or specific receptor) as humans, which make the mice susceptible to the same infection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Mice get COVID-19/2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2? Yikes.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Transgenic mice are created that have the same receptors (or specific receptor) as humans, which make the mice susceptible to the same infection.

        Also, SARS-CoV-2 affects cats, ferrets, and possibly dogs, so they may not have even needed to use transgenic mice for this one.

    • Re:Mice are not people (Score:4, Informative)

      by hankwang ( 413283 ) on Saturday April 04, 2020 @03:09AM (#59907178) Homepage

      They injected mice with foreign (for mice) proteins and tested whether their immune systems responded to it by generating antibodies. The mice weren't infected with Covid-19.

      Here is the full scientific paper:

      E. Kim et al., Microneedle array delivered recombinant coronavirus vaccines: Immunogenicity and rapid translational development, EBioMedicine (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebio... [doi.org]

      As a not-immunologist I find it very difficult to read. The test of immunity involved human kidney cells and something called "pAd". I can't tell whether this is generally known to be a reliable technique to test for immunity against a full virus, with the protein attached in a specific way to the virus.

      .

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsa ( 15680 )

        That's interesting. I don't know more about biochemistry than what I learned in my first two years at University (1989 and 1990) but I will try to read it. Thanks!

    • SARS virus is a mammal thing, in humans it mostly expresses as a lung infection, in bats/pangolins this particular SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from it mostly expresses as a digestive track infection, a mild one at that, it doesn't express as COVID-19 disease, because the course of infection is different, doesn't mean the virus can't replicate in the organism, it can. Same for most other mammals. It definitely spreads easiest among humans, but it has also been found to infect dogs and cats, you can probably

  • The OP of this story has had his personal privacy violated because Slashdot didn't filter out the fbclid=xxx data from the URL.

    This info should be scrubbed from any URLs submitted to any web site.

    WTF, Slashdot? Respect user privacy.

  • I remember reading something a while ago (and this was written by the people who actually think it's a good idea, not foilhats) about how they were thinking of pairing this vaccine with an RFID chip so people could confirm themselves as safe.

    Will we be allowed to get the vaccine WITHOUT that? Will it only be free to people who accept it? Because I really, really don't want them to fucking chip me. The fact they'd want to even makes me leery of the vaccine itself. I generally don't put stock in people who ta

    • I generally don't put stock in people who talk a bunch of shit about "the mark of the beast," but I think everyone can agree that lots of stuff that's going on right now makes the foilhats seem pretty smart.

      You already have your Mark of the Beast which is increasingly being required. It's called a cell phone.

      • ... I was expecting a barcode on my forehead.

      • I tried to go the weed store without my jeejah but they were only doing phone orders with curbside delivery so I had to go home and come back.

        If you tried to make the infected people wear a zombie warning sticker, the sticker would just become the new fashion.

        But turn off push notifications, or you might already be a zombie either way. And don't install that. No, don't install that either. Stop apping.

    • That serves other beneficial purposes to me, I have some control over its behavior, and if I really need to, I can throw it in a dumpster. I don't want to get chipped.

  • In 18 months we won't need a "vaccine" anymore. Everyone will get the bug, a few million people worldwide will die. Trillions of dollars will be set on fire. What use is a "vaccine" if we can only have it a year and a half from now? Give everyone Trump pills and newer antivirals, completely isolate everyone 60 years old and up, and let 'er rip. The UK had the right idea early on.

    • If everybody gets infected it's not going to be just few millions dead, it'll be several percent of any given population, depending on healthcare availability or lack thereof anything up to 10% in worst case scenario. That seems to be about the proportion of infected needing medical help, but you can give real medical help for maybe 0.1% of your population at any given time to be optimistic, the rest can't get any help. That's not millions dead, that's hundred million and more dead. World isn't dumping it's

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by melted ( 227442 )

        Horseshit. It'll be fractions of a percent _of those admitted to the hospital_ for those under 60, and those 60 and over will be isolated and on Trump pills.

  • During the SARS outbreak 10+ years ago, they did make progress, but using ferrets to test therapies -- I'm curious as to why Pittsburg is using mice and not ferrets to test this vaccine (the reason for using ferrets is that they were the only animal found to react similarly to humans to a SARS-CoV infection, so they were used to challenge the vaccine).

    • I suppose that ferrets are more expensive (to get and keep) and harder to get in a large number on short notice (reproduction cycle and permits).

      Note that they only tested whether the mouse immune system responded with antibodies; they didn't need to infect the mice with Covid-19.

  • "At least one year" is too conservative. (Score:4, Informative)

    by hankwang ( 413283 ) on Saturday April 04, 2020 @03:19AM (#59907192) Homepage

    If you look at the plots in the paper (fig. 4, link below), they have data for the MERS virus for 55 weeks and no significant drop in antibody counts over that period. The immunity is likely to last far longer than one year, longer than the life span of a mouse. With SARS-CoV-2, the tests are still running, but at least the immunity buildup in similar to what's seen for MERS.

    E. Kim et al., Microneedle array delivered recombinant coronavirus vaccines: Immunogenicity and rapid translational development, EBioMedicine (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebio... [doi.org]

  • I think while there are no drugs against this you should pay attention on your immune system. You should eat healthy food, sleep good and workout. I think in such case you won't ill. Also you should avoid stress, cbd can really help with this. If you interested, here you can read more details - what is hemp used for [purekana.com].

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