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Gene Therapy May Protect Against Flu
sciencehabit writes "In 2009, a global collaboration of scientists, public health agencies, and companies raced to make a vaccine against a pandemic influenza virus, but most of it wasn't ready until the pandemic had peaked. Now, researchers have come up with an alternative, faster strategy for when a pandemic influenza virus surfaces: Just squirt genes for the protective antibodies into people's noses. The method—which borrows ideas from both gene therapy and vaccination, but is neither—protects mice against a wide range of flu viruses in a new study."
let me know when gene therapy lets me shoot bees out of my arms.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Some radical environmentalist person on their online dating profile writes "Genetically modified people need not apply."
nano-tech and germ warfare become sophisticated enough that we will have millions of little nanobots our bloodstream which will provide the coverage necessary to deal with anything which our immune system isn't able to. This of course will be designed in such a way that you will have to 're-stock' your nanobots at certain determined intervals, because Big Pharma isn't going to design any permanent solution, or at least, will not be marketing any permanent solution at first, for we all know that the money is made through the sales of medications and prescriptions, not in curing any diseases.
It isn't quite as simple as 'squirt genes for the protective antibodies into people's noses'.
It is 'squirt a non-replicating virus into people's noses, so the virus can stick the DNA for the protective antibodies into cells'.
It's a pretty good trick. The cells will start producing the antibody, but they will not pass this property on to subsequent cell generations. That means there is a pretty limited lifespan.
That can make it really good for pandemics, especially if it is fast to generate. However, for longer-term protection you really still need vaccines.
This is "squirt AAV" or Adeno-Associated Virus, or better - rAAV for recombinant. The virus does what viruses do and delivers the genes encoding your gene of interest, in this case a gene encoding a broad antibody that is effective against many different flu virus strains.
This is a big difference, especially if you're trying to sell it out to Average Joe and his mother in law. "Here, let me just squirt this genetically engineered virus into your nose for a second...".
One more thing I don't get - why are they reporting a 2011 paper today?
May cause terminal cancer.
Any day soon we'll have $RANDOM TERRORISTS running around with little bottles of nasal-spray, each encoded to INFECT $ONE SINGLE PERSON with an insanely specific , desperately infectious, 100% fatal disease.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
This is cool and probably an idea that's occurred to lots of people that work with viral vectors etc., but
(1) making and isolating monoclonal antibodies
(2) making specific (=target one thing) antibodies that work the way you want them to, including a demonstrated lack of toxicity in most people
(3) making new ones every time a new sort of killer flu shows up
(4) distributing the vaccine quickly
(5) a crap*ton of other stuff because biology is annoying
are some reasons this isn't done already. It's also impossible under, e.g., the timescale of testing required by the FDA right now.
companies raced to make a vaccine against a pandemic influenza virus, but most of the uncontaminated vaccine wasn't ready until the pandemic had peaked
Fixed that for you.
Cough, cough, ca, ca, ba brains brains brains...
For a while at least it might protect people but, being a living organism with a mandate to survive, the virus will evolve a way around genetic therapy too. Why not meet nature halfway instead? I'll bet it would accept survival if humans would accept a day or two of the sniffles.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I've always wondered if a simple roman coding of the genetic code (just a mapping of the genetic letters) could make us immune to viruses. After all, they use genetic code to override our instructions, if they are scrambled it won't work any more, i.e. they wont't be able to reproduce..
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
They almost have a universal flu vaccine that will last as long as an MMR. I expect the Flu vaccine by the end of this decade to be something you get when you are three and then you're done until booster time.
This is perfect for Big Pharma.
You have to pay every couple weeks to keep you antibodies current.
If not - sorry - you are going to be sick...
Much better than razorblades or print cartridges...
nano-tech and germ warfare become sophisticated enough that we will have millions of little nanobots our bloodstream which will provide the coverage necessary to deal with anything which our immune system isn't able to. This of course will be designed in such a way that you will have to 're-stock' your nanobots at certain determined intervals, because Big Pharma isn't going to design any permanent solution, or at least, will not be marketing any permanent solution at first, for we all know that the money is made through the sales of medications and prescriptions, not in curing any diseases.
This the kind of paranoia that is along the lines of "Cars that could get 100 miles to a gallon of water were available in the 1970s, but the Big Three bought them up and destroyed the information". I will tell you why I don't agree with you. It seems to me as a general observer that drug patents are not subject to the kind of "minor change = new patent" nonsense that is destroying the software industry. If this kind of thing was common, believe me, drugs like minoxidil would be covered under some kind of new patent instead of being in the public domain. Saying that Big Pharma doesn't want to cure diseases sounds plausible, but patents release the information on how drugs are created. So suppose Big Pharma A finds a cure for, say, pancreatic cancer, but they also find a drug that doesn't cure it, but keeps people alive, perhaps related to the cure. The other drug companies will see their patent on the treatment and one may figure out the cure and patent that, putting a complete end to the treatment drug. No, there's too much risk in knowing a better medicine and trying to keep it secret. If company A figured it out, it's only a matter of time before company B does too. If Big Pharma A has a great medicine, they can get established on selling it so that even when generics come out, they may still be able to retain sales (at a cheaper price of course) by having their name associated with the original medicine. Besides, it's great for business to say "We're the guys who cured X for the world, so now try our new medicine to cure Y".
I've known about this for a year or so. Friend of mine is a scientist working on testing cancer treatments using rats and mice.
She told me they introduce the genetic changes mostly through those adeno viruses. But this is pretty cool - you could have complete herd immunity in something you could buy over the counter.
I though antibody production was lymphocyte B cell job. TFA suggests that any type of cell will produce antibodies by just pushing the appropriate DNA. Is it that simple? Why do we have differentiated lymphocyte B cell then?