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Medicine Science

In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead (nytimes.com) 73

Posted by msmash from the marching-forward dept.
In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford University. From a report: Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety. But scientists at the university's Jenner Institute had a running start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations -- including one last year against an earlier coronavirus -- were harmless to humans. That has enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month, hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works. The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September -- at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts -- if it proves to be effective.

Now, they have received promising news suggesting that it might. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic -- exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test. "The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans," Dr. Munster said, noting that scientists were still analyzing the result. He said he expected to share it with other scientists next week and then submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.
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In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead More

In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead

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  • If this looks this close....likely a good time to buy more stocks in general as that this would mean economies would start back up faster....
    • Looks "close" means minimum 6 months, realistically likely 18. It's a great beginning. We need to do lots of other work in the meantime so that we get the full benefit of the vaccine [medium.com].

      • Looks "close" means minimum 6 months

        From the summary:

        the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September

        • From the summary:

          the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September

          That will be in the UK. In the US, 18 months if we're lucky. And the same time frame would apply if the developer were a US university.

        • Look, The guessing games with vaccines ended this time with supercomputer simulation to identify the spike.and receptors. This is one reason for the delay: we do not trust the computer, WHO has TWO vaccines in the works, and ferret testing in Australa is confirming both(I think) and both can be made fast.So there will be many solutions .Given this high cost, I have no idea why mass vaccinations do not start now (at least they appear safe) - because we know the cost of 20K injections is chump change should t

      • Last week, there were reports from Cleveland that remdisivir was the magic bullet that cured COVID-19. Then, the results looked murky, so waiting for more information.

      • Did you not even read the damn summary?

    • Hahahahaha, no. You are supposed to buy shares in the private companies oxford university is licensing this too so I can dump them at a massive profit before it’s found out the vaccine doesn’t work. Have you even stock marketed before?
      • I think cayenne8 is talking about the stock market in general. A confirmed vaccine will send the stock market soaring as people get their bullish sentiment back. Anybody even buying a basic ETF should profit handsomely on a large market recovery.
        • The joke I was trying to depict is that it’s more likely to be a pump and dump scheme than an actual vaccine. Look at the history of vaccines, we have basically never developed one in a year and a half much less just a few months, there is no short cutting the safety and efficacy testing. The only thing worse than a pandemic is a pandemic with everyone getting a rushed vaccine that makes things worse.
    • Hope isn't really a good investment strategy. Everyone says it will take 12 - 18 months for a vaccine if we're lucky. I personally think this is more hype, and we'll find out later when they actually start some trials. What I actually find surprising is that research isn't being crowd souced globally. No company should be allowed to hold any IP from a vaccine if they took a dime of government money. This is the only way we'll have a quick breakthrough.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        I think it's probably accurate, just doesn't mean quite what people think. A million does is probably enough to last through phase 3 trials, with some in reserve.

        • Also, approval in America is far harder and takes longer than UK. Everyone here has to get a piece plus the powers that be will do everything they can to find excuses to delay (so that an American company has a chance to win the race).
          • WHO actualy continued post SARS works with Oxford, Australia and Singapore, and had a validated model to test from the get go. US budget cuts saw leadership drop. Its now about lead times. I read America's prison population is 95% infected across all age groups. like cruise ships or Carriers, this 'gift' will keep on causing waves and waves of infections.Or pourous borders USA can delay approval, but the rest of the world is about to get a head start.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Maybe if you have a segment in your portfolio for long shot investments. But I wouldn't put down the rent money on it.

      Sprinting past an early benchmark is fine, but what matters is crossing the finish line first with a product that works in humans and can be produced in the billions of units.

    • Stocks look like they already hit the bottom and are starting to rebalance (people buying good stocks, dumping stocks that are bad). The S&P hit 2200 during panic selling, so it's unlikely to go below that unless there is another panic.

      So even if this particular vaccine doesn't work out, now is a good time to buy more stocks, unless you have good skill at timing the market.

      • I bought SPDR at $237, I'd love another panic I could take another bite now.

        We've got another 2 weeks or so of Q1 news, there is no way to know if this round of rebalancing is finished.

        But a second wave is likely as places reopen. Stay liquid until you see a fire sale.

      • This fall there is going to be another panic--when Covid-19 comes roaring back.

        • If that happens, it won't be a panic, because people will think we know how to handle it: merely by going back into lockdown, the virus will go back under control. So there's a clear idea of how bad that might be, no reason to panic.
    • Assuming a 3% fatality rate (97% survival rate), the chances of 6 monkeys infected with the virus all surviving is 83% even without a vaccine. So the "promising news" means diddly squat. it's just better news than if one of the monkeys had died of the virus.

      • Your logic is wildly off. You're not factoring in the odds of the inoculated monkeys not getting sick at all due to deliberate exposure.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mestar ( 121800 )

        Well, even in the summary, they didn't claim that monkeys got sick and survived. They claimed monkeys stayed healthy.

  • Welcome our covid-free monkey overlords.

  • We're going to see posts about every news release made by every university research group and every company that's currently working on a coronavirus vaccine. Plus a few "rah rah my country is going to come up with the vaccine first because we're the best" posts for good measure.

    • Re:It's getting obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @03:28PM (#59997652)
      Sure, unless you're one of those self-loathing types that's rooting against your own country and university [huffingtonpost.co.uk]. Don't worry though, the author of that opinion piece teaches in a department that won't contribute anything towards finding a vaccine, or anything of value to humanity for that matter, so I suppose she's succeeding in her endeavors personally.

      And why shouldn't we celebrate the brilliant men and women who develop those kinds of breakthrough advances or allow people to take some national pride in it? No one bats an eye when athletes do it and at most nerds roll their eyes and mumble something about sports ball. It's even better than sports because no matter which university or which country develops a working vaccine, the whole world wins. I'll trade a little bit of semi-sufferable smugness for hundreds of thousands of lives.

      • "the author of that opinion piece teaches in a department that won't contribute anything towards finding a vaccine, or anything of value to humanity for that matter" Indeed (for those who don't follow the link), the author of that article "researches vulnerability and gender." I guess she's also invented the Oxford Apostrophe, since she writes "...questions about it’s sharing of information politically".

      • My post was intended as an observation - much like we pre-coronavirus we were seeing "here's some new whiz-bang battery tech from group A, coming Real Soon Now" followed by "even more whiz-bang battery tech from group B, coming Real Soon Now BTW we deserve tenure" seemingly every few days, we are now seeing similar news-release-driven posts about coronavirus vaccine work.

        I don't particularly see the value in posting stories which don't amount to much more than regurgitated news releases.

        • These kind of stories are bread and butter for Slashdot. And really isn't that why we come here? I want to read about science. I want to hear about what's developing. Sure, most of the technology doesn't live up to the hype. Some of the articles are just feel-good press releases. Hidden inside of these articles are the contenders for the technologies that will shape our future. In the comments are a whole bunch of skeptical readers that sometimes provide valuable technical insight into the sciences - when t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      And And, of course, the posts about how we need to do a zillion year study before we can even try it.

    • I guess we'll have to see which have any substance, like this one does.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        This one has *some* substance. But, as was said above, I wouldn't put my rent money on it. It's quite early days in the study. Even the number of macaque wasn't large enough to justify trusting it as a generally safe vaccine for macaque monkey. But it *is* promising. And that's good to hear.

    • I'm perfectly fine with competitive spirit and national pride pushing us toward the goal, as long as whomever gets there first doesn't go all EpiPen with it, or make it unavailable to other countries through nationalistic horseshit.

      Finding an effective vaccine to this coronavirus would be a good thing, regardless of motivation.

  • Not yet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday April 27, 2020 @03:27PM (#59997650)

    I hope it works, but we need guarded optimism because there are a shitload of things that can go wrong .. here are a few:

    1. How long does the immunity last? Does it wear off before it can be useful? It's a common problem, the vaccine design has to ensure the correct immunological pathways are activated.

    2. If the person is infected with a version of the virus wherein the target protein(s) is mutated .. will the immune system go bonkers and make the old (non-neutralizing to the new strain) antibodies? (Hoskins effect)

    3. Another thing that can happen is that the antibodies can actually help certain strains of the virus infect cells (Antibody dependent enhancement).

    3. Can it trigger autoimmunity? (possible but very rare)

    If you want references for vaccines that failed .. look up most of the dengue fever and HIV vaccine candidates that had human trials.

    I am excluding the infamous 2017/2018 flu season's ineffective vaccine which resulted in a crazy high record number of deaths -- because that was caused by bad strain selection (so not really applicable here).

    • If you want references for vaccines that failed .. look up most of the dengue fever and HIV vaccine candidates that had human trials.

      It seems like Coronavirus is a lot easier to make a vaccine for than HIV....

      • HIV infects cells of the immune system. It's hard to fight something that actually wants you to fight it, since that is where it grows. A typical vaccine would just train your immune system to fight it, which is exactly what HIV takes advantage of. It also doesn't kill you directly, it slowly destroys your immune systems so you end up dying of everything else.
      • HIV-thousands per host, Corona - a few hundred.

      • Coranavirus is an RNA virus. HIV is a DNA retrovirus. So yes, naturally, any coronavirus is going to be easier to target than HIV. RNA viruses are simpler, less sophisticated than DNA viruses.

        • Your comment is essentially false (HIV is an RNA virus too), but I dont feel like delving into the details (HIV has a smaller genome than Coronaviruses etc.) so just google it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Well, we don't know that yet. But it well may be, because there were incomplete efforts at a vaccine against SARS that are acting as a springboard. OTOH, there's concern that the surface of the lungs may not be accessible to antibodies, or at least not readily accessible. And at least one source told me that what you need against viruses is not antibodies, but rather killer T-Cells. ... but certainly some of the vaccine formulations should generate those. (At least the one using inactivated viruses, eve

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I probably won't be able to take it because of auto immune issues. But if enough healthy people can take it to build up herd immunity it could help me anyway.

  • The lizard people are not here, everything is fine. I can just imagine the conspiracy nuts will have some good ones like this coming. Popcorn is ready...

  • Hmm... Was the 28 Days reference a twisted joke?

  • By the time we have a vaccine, everyone who could be infected would already have had the disease. So this is definitely useless for COVID19 and likely for COVID20 as well. To deal with that we need to stop sabotaging therapeutics with studies that only give them to already dying patients, and therefore are designed to fail.

    This might be useful for C21 though.

    • By the time we have a vaccine, everyone who could be infected would already have had the disease.

      Not hardly. I know lots of people who will be obsessive-compulsive about this thing until they are *sure* there is basic herd immunity due to the existence and broad application of a well-vetted vaccine or well-organized test-and-isolate strategy or sure knowledge that the existing virus has been stomped out.

      I am more risk tolerant and look forward simply to a significant reduction in the probability that the virus is basically contained. I am in Ohio where the governor (a Republican) was surprisingly early

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lenski ( 96498 )

        Correction to the double negative typo... "I look forward to a significant reduction in the probability of being around an active case, as would be true of the virus is basically contained."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by melted ( 227442 )

        For a vaccine to make sense it needs to be much safer than the disease. Remember, you will have to give it to 160M people in US alone for it to do much at all. If even a small fraction of those people has an adverse reaction, the vaccine will kill a ton of folks and will become politically infeasible. So they're going to take their time with it. 18 months might be an optimistic estimate. In fact, we might not have a vaccine for this at all in the end, just like we do not have a vaccine for another popular c

  • People like these researchers are in part what keeps a spark of hope alive for our species, so far as not totally destroying ourselves. Amidst all the dim-witted idiots the world seems to be overrun with, there's still thoughtful, intelligent, creative, and productive people like at this Jenner Institute, working to actually save us, instead of running around like chickens with their heads cut off, panicking, or 'protesting their loss of freedom', or being anti-vaxxers, or just plain ripping anyone and ever
  • This will hopefully work in humans with no real side effects.
  • Sweden is going with the herd immunity strategy - without a vaccine. So they are not trying to stop the epidemic, just doing some effort to slow down the spread. Other than this, their medical system is high level. So I think it would be a good candidate for trials on a vaccine, especially cities like Gothenburg that have big population but not yet hit strongly by the virus (it's just a matter of time, though).
  • Infected monkeys in a lab and the sentence "28 days later". Where have I seen this before?...
  • Do hold your breath!
    It takes longer to gain USA Federal Government Approval (FDA, etc.) than it does to develop any medical device, vaccine, medicine.
    We are years away from having a genuine vaccine for the novel coronavirus if this past timelines for approvals.
    So Sorry but this all Sucks...

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