12 ms·

Moderna’s HIV vaccine has officially begun human trials

1049 points by grawprog 5y ago

_v8ex 5y ago
Original press release: https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/IAVI-and-Moderna-Launch-Trial-of-HIV-Vaccine-Antigens-Delivered-Through-mRNA-Technology/default.aspx https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/IAVI-...
Pooge 5y ago
From my understanding, the effectiveness of the vaccine is measured by monitoring - in the real world - how many vaccinated people of a group catches the virus compared with how many unvaccinated did: how would it work in this case? I guess it would just take a lot of years to come up with a good approximation.
- deleted 5y ago
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- TameAntelope 5y ago
  https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat... This info should give you a better idea of how one might compose a set of trial groups for something like this.
  - Pooge 5y ago
    Thank you, this is a good resource! But in order to have a good approximation of the effectiveness, we would need people to get infected. If I simplify, I would get vaccinated and stop using protection (i.e. condoms) during intercourse, but then I may catch it and end up living for life with HIV (contrast to COVID where you still have fairly reasonable chances to recover from). How would trials work for things like this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I hope you see where I'm going with this.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Not sure what the issue is. Tens of thousands of people get HIV each year; all you need to do is give some of them the vaccine and see if those people get HIV as much as the people you didn't give the vaccine to. People are already getting infected, we don't need to do anything for that to continue to happen.
      - Pooge 5y ago
        Absolutely no issue. I was just wondering how we would possibly approach it. And got my answer! Thanks.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        Easier said than done. In 2019, the estimated number of HIV infections in the U.S. was 34,800 and the rate was 12.6 per 100,000 people. Consider that normal clinical trials are a few hundred people. Men who have sex with men are ~25x more likely to get HIV, so you are still looking at 1 in 3,000 per year. You are talking about some pretty huge trials here even if you are focusing on MSM only.
- kettleballroll 5y ago
  This will be Phase 1 clinical trials, ie they're mostly about side effects (and potentially dosage): ie they'll mostly check whether this will kill you / which dosage van be considered mostly safe. But at later trial stages, this will be one method to do this. Another and mich simpler one: you check whether the vaccinated people develop the antibodies you're looking for.
ineedasername 5y ago
How are human trials on high-risk low-incidence diseases like this conducted?
- f6v 5y ago
  I guess the same as in diseases like tuberculosis. I’ve just read an article where they studied immune responses in recent TB infections. The authors recruited subjects from South Africa. I think it’s not that hard to get them to join the trials since payout can be quite significant where such disease are widespread, especially compared to Europe or North America. And some areas have just outrageous HIV prevalence. Just sample a hundred people and you get a decent sample size.
- jldugger 5y ago
  > high-risk low-incidence diseases like this conducted If you're asking 'how do we test the vaccine without _trying_ to give people HIV", one option is to give it to a lot of people, and record their outcomes over time. But first you need to prove the vaccine isnt like, super toxic in humans. So you do animal analog tests, then a limited test on humans, aka "Phase 1 trials". A previous article summarizes: > Moderna’s vaccines passed Phase I testing earlier this year, which involves testing for safety using only a handful of human volunteers. Phase II tests for a vaccine’s overall effectiveness, and with the move into Phase III, Moderna will be looking at its efficacy versus other prevention treatments currently on the market, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PreP. - https://www.them.us/story/moderna-begins-hiv-vaccine-trials-covid-19-research https://www.them.us/story/moderna-begins-hiv-vaccine-trials-...
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    That article may be wrong. According to clinicaltrials.gov, they were still recruiting for the HIV trial and the target completion date is April 11, 2023. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05001373?id=NCT05001373&draw=2&rank=1&load=cart https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05001373?id=NCT050013... Edited because my previous version was possibly wrong.
    - 5y ago
8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
I wonder if we'll see HSV also addressed by this new wave of mRNA vaccines, or if it's just not top of mind for companies and researchers due to its "mostly benign" nature. At least until one's immune system starts to weaken with advanced age and it starts to cause all sorts of problems, but perhaps by then it gets swept under the "problems of aging" rug.
- zionic 5y ago
  I think we need to do a much better job at wiping out these "mostly benign" viruses. I suspect we'll someday learn they drastically increase your cancer risk, like we did with HPV and male throat cancer.
- deleted 5y ago
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- Unklejoe 5y ago
  Dr. Friedman and team at UPenn are working on exactly this. An mRNA based prophylactic (and also potentially therapeutic) vaccine for HSV. I think they were originally using some other form of vaccine (a protein vaccine?), but then realized that mRNA was a lot better. He has posted a few video updates on the progress, and it looks good, but of course it hasn't entered phase 1 yet (supposed to start this year).
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Yes there are multiple efforts with that one being I think the most promising. They hope to cure the first humans of HSV in 2024. I believe they have all the funding they need for now, having raised over $500k. More details on this subreddit and specifically this sticky: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...
    - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
      It's interesting how small some of those grants and funding pools are compared to what you see in startup land. Maybe this is just the economics of viral research, but you'd think that with plenty of people out there willing to pay to cure themselves of HSV, or prevent it, there would be more financial support. Yet, the people working on the problem have as much funding as the YC Standard Deal announced this month. I wonder why.
deleted 5y ago
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temptemptemp111 5y ago
Koffiepoeder 5y ago
Honest question: since making mrna candidate vaccines is apparently so easy, would it be feasible to include mrna of multiple disease proteins in one vaccine? Is there hope for e.g. a general std-vaccine that covers all of the most common std's?
- Veliladon 5y ago
  Yes. On the respiratory side Moderna already have a vaccine in development for quadrivalent flu, COVID-19 and RSV in the same shot projected for a 2023 release.
  - ImaCake 5y ago
    That would be a pretty damn useful vaccine for society. With a bit of luck and talent we might look back on these years as a turning point for how well we can suppress respiratory infection severity and spread.
deleted 5y ago
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hackerlytest 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
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dogma1138 5y ago
Why is the comment with the actual press release that honestly gives far better info flagged to death? @Dang can you fix this?
- adventured 5y ago
  Interestingly their five link submissions are all dead as well. I'm guessing it was some kind of automated response based on the account history.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.
- erglkjklrh 5y ago
- thesis 5y ago
  Not sure why you’re being downvoted all much… well actually no it’s pretty obvious. I think you’re right though. The current Covid-19 vaccines are proven to lose efficacy over time. Will the same thing happen with this one as well? It’s a good question.
  - luckydata 5y ago
    because the point he's making is wrong. Vaccines are doing a fantastic job at slowing down the progression of the virus which is key to keep mutations at bay. No vaccine is 100% effective, but even 80% effectiveness radically changes the dynamic of a pandemic, it's so easy to see that I don't understand what can lead someone to deny this fact besides bad faith.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree, I downvoted the comment because it appeared to be made in bad faith (and from another comment I posted on this topic, I obviously share the concern that this HIV vaccine may lose efficacy over time). Also, it's not hard to see how a vaccine for HIV would be much more effective at slowing pandemic progression than a vaccine for an airborne virus, even if the vaccines conferred the same benefits. Right now, if you get HIV, you are essentially contagious for life until you get on antiretrovirals that can bring your viral load to undetectable (and, you also need to be on those antiretrovirals for life). If an HIV vaccine prevented you from having a long term infection, it could potentially fully end the pandemic.
    - 5y ago
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
As I understand it, the reason an HIV vaccine has been so difficult to create is that HIV mutates so easily. I understand the basics behind how mRNA vaccines are generated, but I don't understand why this approach would be expected to have any more success in evading the high mutation potential of HIV than other vaccine types. After all, it was even a concern with new coronavirus variants that the original Moderna vaccine would be less effective against them (and, indeed, while the original vaccine is still highly effective against all variants, my understanding is that it is less so than the original variant). And SARS-COV-2 mutates much less easily than HIV. Can someone with more knowledge explain the thought process behind this?
- helloworld 5y ago
  "Prof. William Schief explains how the novel #HIV #vaccine being tested in human clinical trials can trigger the right #Bcells of the immune system to achieve the much sought after broadly neutralizing #antibodies." https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch/status/1358120854970912769 https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch/status/13581208549709127...
  - dmix 5y ago
    Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmXpMmvHWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmXpMmvHWw This explains the background on broadly neutralizing antibodies that the other commenter `mlyle` mentions. Worth the watch.
- spamizbad 5y ago
  One reason is that mRNA vaccines can be developed much faster than traditional vaccines. So the idea is you have a better chance of "outrunning" a strain.
  - f6v 5y ago
    I think slowly will come the realization that mRNA vaccines aren’t as fast to develop as people thought. Sputnik/AstraZeneca vaccines were released almost at the same time as Moderna/Pfizer. Yes, the latter were first commercial mRNA vaccines, but the technology is nevertheless rather mature. I watched a lecture by the people credited with creating mRNA vaccines and it turns out people have been working on the technology for decades. Now, the thing is that you can’t just sequence a virus, do bioinformatics, synthesize mRNA and package it into a nano particle. I mean, you can, but chances are it’s going to fail like the CureVac vaccine. The mRNA that gets packaged needs to be modified (I believe with alternative bases) to achieve desired effect. If mRNA vaccine was as magical as it was marketed, we wouldn’t be getting 3-4(and soon 5?) doses of the same vaccine with the emergence of new variants. Rather, there would be delta- and omicron-specific vaccine.
abeppu 5y ago
I'm a bit confused by the timing of this. Here's a press release from only a couple months ago, in which a Moderna partnership on an mRNA vaccine showed some benefit in macaques, but mostly in delaying infection (i.e. most macaques in the treatment group still got SHIV). Only two of seven in the treatment group actually remained uninfected. It sounded like researches wanted to refine and validate their protocol before moving to human trials. > “We are now refining our vaccine protocol to improve the quality and quantity of the VLPs produced. This may further increase vaccine efficacy and thus lower the number of prime and boost inoculations needed to produce a robust immune response. If confirmed safe and effective, we plan to conduct a Phase 1 trial of this vaccine platform in healthy adult volunteers,” said Dr. Lusso. I interpreted "If confirmed safe and effective" to mean that more animal tests would happen. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/experimental-mrna-hiv-vaccine-safe-shows-promise-animals https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/experimental-m...
- f6v 5y ago
  It’s hot tech, maybe driven by the desire to pump share prices.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  2 out of 7 macaques didn't get infected after 13 weekly (anally administered) exposures to SHIV. The other 5 averaged 8 exposures before infection took place vs 3 exposures in the control group. That's actually pretty good at preventing infection - 28.5% avoided infection completely, with the remainder clearly having a much more robust immunity than control.
  - abeppu 5y ago
    I mean, it seems like it did _something_ meaningful. But if you were part of an at-risk population, how promising would you really consider an animal trial that, for most treatment subjects, delayed infection by 5 weeks? Note, these animals had received multiple vaccines/boosters spaced out over a year before they were exposed to SHIV, i.e they spent 10x as long being vaccinated as they resisted infection.
unnouinceput 5y ago
- tacLog 5y ago
  It's important to remember that any community can spread it. Needle sharing among intravenous drug users comes to mind. However, you can't deny that HIV has struck a generational blow upon the LGBTQ+ community. If this works it will be the end to an era of fear. Many will remember those that where lost and wish this only happened sooner. A new reason to celebrate is underselling the impact this will have.
  - ipnon 5y ago
    It seems to me like lumping lesbians and the queer into this calculus is a little insensitive because it was almost exclusively gay men and trans women who bore the brunt. I'm sure this press release ran by a publicist who said, "we have to use all the letters or else we'll get torn to shreds on Twitter."
    - tacLog 5y ago
      I get what your saying. But on the other hand we are just talking about celebrating this. I feel like those sub-communities are probably more aware of the impact HIV than the average cis straight person and are probably going to celebrate this as well. I don't get what's insensitive about it at all so maybe I am missing your point.
      - ipnon 5y ago
        If we get down to brass tacks, this is a situation where sex takes precedence over gender. The HIV epidemic in the West was borne by XY people, and the history of HIV in America is by and large an XY history. What are we obfuscating by painting this history with a broadly "queer" brush?
  - deleted 5y ago
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ukie 5y ago
hatware 5y ago
- gitfan86 5y ago
  I don't follow your logic. Because Fauci, Trump, Biden said things that turned out to be false, new medicines can no longer be created? Or are you saying that new medicines can still be created, but you will not take them out of spite toward the lies told during the pandemic?
  - hatware 5y ago
    - gitfan86 5y ago
      That is fine if you think things would have worked out better if we just treated Covid like another strain of the flu. 99% of ER Doctors disagree with you. If you think their opinion doesn't matter, that is fine too, but I don't see why I should ignore their opinions and agree with yours.
      - hatware 5y ago
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I would be happy if they cured cancer.
  - hatware 5y ago
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      It's a cute common conspiracy theory but it doesn't really hold up. Modern pharma is making progress all the time. E.g. as shown, an HIV vaccine.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
I think that this might be a follow-on benefit of Operation Warp Speed which had a post a few days ago. From that post, it seems like one of the benefits to Moderna (apart from a big cash infusion) was that Moderna had the science, but did not actually have the experience and pipelines of actually bringing a drug to a broad market. They did not have the experience and infrastructure for large scale human trials and for the large scale manufacturing. Experience with creating, testing, manufacturing, and rolling out the Covid vaccines, were I am sure invaluable in helping Moderna become a "full-stack" drug company. Very excited by this development and looking forward to (hopefully promising) results. It will be wonderful if we can make HIV/AIDS something future generations will only know from history books.
throwaway73838 5y ago
- kahrl 5y ago
  Luc Montagnier. Yes he's a quack now and yes he was immediately refuted. https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-Nobel-winner-Luc-Montagnier-says-Covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab-laboratory https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-...
- dr_zoidberg 5y ago
  I remember headlines saying that, but the most I'm finding is that the paper that claimed such links was quickly retracted from bioRxiv[0]. I'm a bit lost as to how misinformation played in placing a Nobel Prize winner in the mix, possibly they mentioned there was research suggesting that link. [0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/03/retraction-faulty-coronavirus-paper-good-moment-for-science/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/03/retraction-faulty-corona...
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  The same guy believes in homeopathy and that DNA can teleport via radio waves into a sample of pure water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation It's a whole thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
  - throwaway73838 5y ago
    It wasn’t just him saying that. I once went on a forum for a journal article, and there were two camps of biologists - those speaking about the similar sections, and those refuting the claims. I noticed that most of the refutations came from scientists with Chinese sounding names. I realize that this is just anecdotal, and you can choose to believe me or not. But that’s what I saw. You may still be able to find it on Google. Also, from the first para of his Wiki page: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory. Such a claim has been refuted by other virologists.[6][7][8][9] He has been criticised by other academics for using his Nobel prize status to "spread dangerous health messages outside his field of knowledge".[10] Looks like he’s been at least partially vindicated.
sharken 5y ago
If a HIV vaccine really is happening, that will really brighten the memory of the last two COVID years. And as always there are some great insights to the inner working of the vaccine, Hacker News doesn't disappoint.
- csours 5y ago
  A LOT of really good science was funded over the last two years. It will be a while before it's all understood and integrated. It does give me a little bit of hope.
somesanityplz 5y ago
- hnarn 5y ago
  I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
  - khazhoux 5y ago
    Sadly, given that it's a new (throwaway?) account used to post in a thread about a vaccine, there's a high chance this is another neo-anti-vaxxer, here to tell us why this is "not a vaccine" and all that.
    - somesanityplz 5y ago
      I am just making a couple of considerations about you, audience, considering I silently read what you comment for years already. This is not a throwaway account. I just felt the need to express my opinion, if you are sad about that, and the only way to answer me is to label me as a "neo-anti-vaxer" you are just demonstrating my point.
      - khazhoux 5y ago
        But see, you didn't actually make a point in your original comment. I don't mean that rudely. You referred to the "arrogance [we] likely use to discuss the correctness of [our] code." What are actually saying here? If you want to engage in discussion, I encourage you to use plain language. Accuse the community directly of whatever charge you're bringing, and then we can debate.
        somesanityplz 5y ago
        Would you deploy in production a software (which lack of safety could be critical) without being sure (or have proof) if it will effectively work as expected in 1+ years? Would you be relaxed being the administrator of such a software?
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
mleonhard 5y ago
The them.us article [0] says: > but we’ll be praying ... that by next year, LGBTQ+ communities around the globe will have a new reason to celebrate. This perpetuates the myth that HIV is mainly a problem for gay people. Can we change to another article, such as [1]? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports Moderna's HIV vaccine research [2]. [0] https://www.them.us/story/hiv-aids-vaccine-human-trials-moderna https://www.them.us/story/hiv-aids-vaccine-human-trials-mode... [1] https://www.engadget.com/moderna-mrna-hiv-vaccine-trials-225655400.html https://www.engadget.com/moderna-mrna-hiv-vaccine-trials-225... [2] https://www.modernatx.com/ecosystem/strategic-collaborators/foundations-advancing-mrna-science-and-research https://www.modernatx.com/ecosystem/strategic-collaborators/...
- moooo99 5y ago
  > This perpetuates the myth that HIV is mainly a problem for gay people. Can we change to another article, such as [1]? But how is that a myth? The US Gov site [0] that is linked in the engadget article literally states that > HIV continues to have a disproportionate impact on certain populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities and gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. Fruther down: > Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM)b are the population most affected by HIV in the U.S.: > MSM accounted for 69% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States. While I agree that the focusing only on LGBTQ+ as a group is not an ideal way to put it, there is no myth in claiming that gay/bisexual men are at the highest risk of getting it. [0] https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat...
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    This number changes dramatically when you look globally. MSM is about 23% of new infections https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics#footnote8_q5xi4ue https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics#footnot...
    - collegeburner 5y ago
      Because it include subsaharan africa globally. Readership for this site is probably only in United States and here it is mostly gay men
localhost 5y ago
Last night I read this Nature review paper [1] and this history article [2] that describe the parallel investigations in both mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticle technology that ultimately led to the development of mRNA based vaccines. As we come up on Nobel Prize season, the second article is particularly interesting if you want to get a preview of some of the possible recipients. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00358-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00358-0 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
pwned1 5y ago
Since the mRNA covid vaccines seem to only work for 90-180 days, why would a vaccine for anything else be different?
- 535188B17C93743 5y ago
  I don't know anything about vaccines or their validity, but even then, the current solutions are a shot once a month or PrEP every day... so twice a year sounds pretty great to me?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  AIDS and COVID are extremely different. If you are exposed to COVID but got the vax a year ago, you’re likely to have symptoms. You probably don’t actively have antibodies. But that’s okay! You might have some symptoms, in fact they might be severe, but given enough time your immunity will ramp back up, and you still will clear the virus. If you clear HIV after a week or two, that is a HUGE win for you.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  You are wrong. mRNA covid vaccines don't "only work for 90-180 days". First of all, you need 3 shots to get fully vaccinated in the first place. This is one shot more than the original approved plan, but a very common thing about vaccinations. I got 3 measels shots for example. This has to do with how the immune system works, repeated shots cause different effects which lead to improved immunity. Also, we are facing very different variants. With the original strain and the first variants, the vaccines would have done their job with just 2 shots and we might even have achieved herd immunity. But delta and especially omicron did happen. Still, with 3 shots, the vaccines against the first strain are still excellent in protecting against severe disease and there is no indication yet that this protection is dropping significantly over time. To stress this: we are talking about effects due to the nature of the human immune system and the virus mutations. There is no indication what so ever, that the mRNA technology produces shorter lasting immune responses. Quite the contrary, the mRNA vaccines are the ones which proved the most efficient against SARS-Cov-2.
NoblePublius 5y ago
mikaeluman 5y ago
I remember growing up being terrified of HIV/AIDS. The idea of something being permanent and transmissible via sex, and literally dismounting your immune defense to all other diseases on the planet... To this day it still terrifies me, even though the treatments have become so good. Each year it seems there are new stories about HIV research, and progress keeps being made. I pray for positive results and am really amazed. We have a lot to be thankful for.
- suifbwish 5y ago
  - ImaCake 5y ago
    Just to address this. There is no evidence anyone produced HIV in a lab and then released it, accidentally or not, out into the world. Scientists have established a pretty robust causal chain for where HIV came from. It is plausible that HIV was spreading between humans before we even really had the field of Molecular Biology that would have allowed us to “make” HIV.
    - suifbwish 5y ago
      I didn’t say it was not natural. I simply said it would not surprise me if it were not. It’s interesting how even asking a question about things can become taboo.
      - biorach 5y ago
        No one said it was taboo. You made a dumb comment, someone politely explained real science to you.
        ImaCake 5y ago
        Thanks for this :) Probably the best thing about the culture of science is that ignorance is often answered with polite explanation. Many scientists I know expect their own ignorant comments to be answered the same way. It is much harder to argue against a polite and well argued scientific response!
erglkjklrh 5y ago
egrlk45ylkj 5y ago
db1234 5y ago
Does anyone know if mRNA tech can be potentially used to cure food allergy in the future? I know that the pattern is to train immune system to recognize a foreign object and attack it but is it possible to train immune system using mRNA to not attack in certain cases? I did come across a paper from 2018 regarding potential use of mRNA to fight food allergy but I haven't come across any updates since then.
- ianlevesque 5y ago
  I am very not a biologist but I can't picture how this would work. Immunotherapy for food allergies, specifically peanuts, involves basically microdosing the allergen until the immune system chills out. mRNA wouldn't help there, even if you made a vaccine that exposed a peanut protein it'd have the opposite effect you were going for. If you took a different approach and expressed a protein that suppresses the immune response, then in just days when the mRNA degrades the effect would be lost. I'm sure we will get many miracles from mRNA tech but this doesn't seem like a likely one to me.
  - suifbwish 5y ago
    The mRNA would actually code for the protein (allergen) so they would not need to be injected. The main advantage of mRNA tech is that you can use the same device to create an limited number of inoculations by simply providing blueprints and letting your cells do the rest.
  - hwbehrens 5y ago
    I am only moderately not a biologist, but this seems essentially correct -- vaccines are trying to address false negatives, but allergies are (in theory) caused by false positives. The mechanics of T cell training in the thymus for self/nonself discrimination are only partially understood, but any approach to rewrite antigen recognition would be (A) extremely risky, by potentially inducing massive autoimmune effects if anything went wrong, and (B) much more impactful for e.g. organ transplantation than allergic response.
NotChina 5y ago
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Will you still be able catch HIV and pass it on to others all the same, with "lesser symptoms", until the day you die from HIV? The post 2021 changed definition of "vaccine" is a bit of any oxymoron.
- MisterSandman 5y ago
  What change? Vaccines have never been said to be 100% effective on an individual basis.
  - dukeofdoom 5y ago
    The definition of vaccine was changed by CDC last year: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... Were previous vaccines at least as effective as not getting vaccinated? Ontario data is showing vaccinated getting infected at higher rates than unvaccinated. (3rd grahp) https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=1 https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=1 If that's the case, its more like a therapeutic than vaccine. Literally going out to get some sunshine is therapeutic. I'm sure billion dollar pharma companies love that they can sell half baked products to this lower standard going forward. At least for most other products you can get a refund for something that doesn't work half the time. In this situation you can't even sue if it caused you injury. Hope you don't support this corrupt fuckry.
deleted 5y ago
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NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
Is this a measles type of vaccine or a covid type of vaccine?
a45a33s 5y ago
this was the real endgame of the vaccine mandates, force the whole world to participate in a trial of mRNA technology so that it could start being used in other profitable products.
- ezfe 5y ago
  It's a good thing they didn't mandate that you get an mRNA vaccine .
nunez 5y ago
This is an even bigger deal than COVID vaccines. Many third-world nations struggle hard with HIV/AIDS; this can be revolutionary for them.
macksd 5y ago
I'm curious how trials like this work, in that if you engage in practices that leave you at risk of HIV infection, you really ought to use condoms or other prophylactic measures. Without telling people they no longer recommend such practices, I wonder how they get enough signal to prove efficacy.
- make3 5y ago
  I assume they will test it in regions of the world that are more affected
edmcnulty101 5y ago
I have a friend who has HIV with a zero virus count. Does anyone know if this will combat the latent virus?
- MisterSandman 5y ago
  From what I've read, no. Once you're U=U, it seems like no treatment can rid the virus completely. I would love to be corrected though.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    Thanks for info. Thats expected. Just wanted to check and be sure. I know dealing with the latent HIV has been a big challenge.
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
coffeeblack 5y ago
So all it took to get here was €10 bln from EU governments and $10 bln from the US government to push the rapid development of mRNA tech? Shouldn’t this be done regularly? How about $20 bln to finally get a good malaria vaccine?
- rob_c 5y ago
  Don't worry they'll have Africa sign a contract saying they can't sue when it turns out to not quite work as it's hyped to to.
rob_c 5y ago
This is going to unfortunately suffer the wrath of their last flu jab being mislabeled for efficacy, safety and longevity. I'm not saying it doesn't work it clearly does cut deaths but I think public option is starting to irrevocably sway based on regions which pushed it first. Not to mention the "reduces transmission by X" number keeps dropping with more studies and data...
z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
I would never put anything made made by Moderna in my body even if I was on my deathbed.
husamia 5y ago
I thought we would never find cure for HIV. This is such huge news.

1049 points by grawprog 5y ago

Original press release: https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/IAVI-and-Moderna-Launch-Trial-of-HIV-Vaccine-Antigens-Delivered-Through-mRNA-Technology/default.aspx https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/IAVI-...

Pooge 5y ago

From my understanding, the effectiveness of the vaccine is measured by monitoring - in the real world - how many vaccinated people of a group catches the virus compared with how many unvaccinated did: how would it work in this case? I guess it would just take a lot of years to come up with a good approximation.

deleted 5y ago
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TameAntelope 5y ago
https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat... This info should give you a better idea of how one might compose a set of trial groups for something like this.
- Pooge 5y ago
  Thank you, this is a good resource! But in order to have a good approximation of the effectiveness, we would need people to get infected. If I simplify, I would get vaccinated and stop using protection (i.e. condoms) during intercourse, but then I may catch it and end up living for life with HIV (contrast to COVID where you still have fairly reasonable chances to recover from). How would trials work for things like this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I hope you see where I'm going with this.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Not sure what the issue is. Tens of thousands of people get HIV each year; all you need to do is give some of them the vaccine and see if those people get HIV as much as the people you didn't give the vaccine to. People are already getting infected, we don't need to do anything for that to continue to happen.
    - Pooge 5y ago
      Absolutely no issue. I was just wondering how we would possibly approach it. And got my answer! Thanks.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      Easier said than done. In 2019, the estimated number of HIV infections in the U.S. was 34,800 and the rate was 12.6 per 100,000 people. Consider that normal clinical trials are a few hundred people. Men who have sex with men are ~25x more likely to get HIV, so you are still looking at 1 in 3,000 per year. You are talking about some pretty huge trials here even if you are focusing on MSM only.
kettleballroll 5y ago
This will be Phase 1 clinical trials, ie they're mostly about side effects (and potentially dosage): ie they'll mostly check whether this will kill you / which dosage van be considered mostly safe. But at later trial stages, this will be one method to do this. Another and mich simpler one: you check whether the vaccinated people develop the antibodies you're looking for.

ineedasername 5y ago

How are human trials on high-risk low-incidence diseases like this conducted?

f6v 5y ago
I guess the same as in diseases like tuberculosis. I’ve just read an article where they studied immune responses in recent TB infections. The authors recruited subjects from South Africa. I think it’s not that hard to get them to join the trials since payout can be quite significant where such disease are widespread, especially compared to Europe or North America. And some areas have just outrageous HIV prevalence. Just sample a hundred people and you get a decent sample size.
jldugger 5y ago
> high-risk low-incidence diseases like this conducted If you're asking 'how do we test the vaccine without _trying_ to give people HIV", one option is to give it to a lot of people, and record their outcomes over time. But first you need to prove the vaccine isnt like, super toxic in humans. So you do animal analog tests, then a limited test on humans, aka "Phase 1 trials". A previous article summarizes: > Moderna’s vaccines passed Phase I testing earlier this year, which involves testing for safety using only a handful of human volunteers. Phase II tests for a vaccine’s overall effectiveness, and with the move into Phase III, Moderna will be looking at its efficacy versus other prevention treatments currently on the market, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PreP. - https://www.them.us/story/moderna-begins-hiv-vaccine-trials-covid-19-research https://www.them.us/story/moderna-begins-hiv-vaccine-trials-...
- meepmorp 5y ago
  That article may be wrong. According to clinicaltrials.gov, they were still recruiting for the HIV trial and the target completion date is April 11, 2023. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05001373?id=NCT05001373&draw=2&rank=1&load=cart https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05001373?id=NCT050013... Edited because my previous version was possibly wrong.
  - 5y ago

8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago

I wonder if we'll see HSV also addressed by this new wave of mRNA vaccines, or if it's just not top of mind for companies and researchers due to its "mostly benign" nature. At least until one's immune system starts to weaken with advanced age and it starts to cause all sorts of problems, but perhaps by then it gets swept under the "problems of aging" rug.

zionic 5y ago
I think we need to do a much better job at wiping out these "mostly benign" viruses. I suspect we'll someday learn they drastically increase your cancer risk, like we did with HPV and male throat cancer.
deleted 5y ago
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Unklejoe 5y ago
Dr. Friedman and team at UPenn are working on exactly this. An mRNA based prophylactic (and also potentially therapeutic) vaccine for HSV. I think they were originally using some other form of vaccine (a protein vaccine?), but then realized that mRNA was a lot better. He has posted a few video updates on the progress, and it looks good, but of course it hasn't entered phase 1 yet (supposed to start this year).
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Yes there are multiple efforts with that one being I think the most promising. They hope to cure the first humans of HSV in 2024. I believe they have all the funding they need for now, having raised over $500k. More details on this subreddit and specifically this sticky: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
    It's interesting how small some of those grants and funding pools are compared to what you see in startup land. Maybe this is just the economics of viral research, but you'd think that with plenty of people out there willing to pay to cure themselves of HSV, or prevent it, there would be more financial support. Yet, the people working on the problem have as much funding as the YC Standard Deal announced this month. I wonder why.

deleted 5y ago

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temptemptemp111 5y ago

Koffiepoeder 5y ago

Honest question: since making mrna candidate vaccines is apparently so easy, would it be feasible to include mrna of multiple disease proteins in one vaccine? Is there hope for e.g. a general std-vaccine that covers all of the most common std's?

Veliladon 5y ago
Yes. On the respiratory side Moderna already have a vaccine in development for quadrivalent flu, COVID-19 and RSV in the same shot projected for a 2023 release.
- ImaCake 5y ago
  That would be a pretty damn useful vaccine for society. With a bit of luck and talent we might look back on these years as a turning point for how well we can suppress respiratory infection severity and spread.

deleted 5y ago

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hackerlytest 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
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dogma1138 5y ago

Why is the comment with the actual press release that honestly gives far better info flagged to death? @Dang can you fix this?

adventured 5y ago
Interestingly their five link submissions are all dead as well. I'm guessing it was some kind of automated response based on the account history.

rubyist5eva 5y ago

> We could be getting even closer to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Not if it's anything like the Covid-19 vaccines that don't stop someone from contracting or spreading it.

erglkjklrh 5y ago
thesis 5y ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted all much… well actually no it’s pretty obvious. I think you’re right though. The current Covid-19 vaccines are proven to lose efficacy over time. Will the same thing happen with this one as well? It’s a good question.
- luckydata 5y ago
  because the point he's making is wrong. Vaccines are doing a fantastic job at slowing down the progression of the virus which is key to keep mutations at bay. No vaccine is 100% effective, but even 80% effectiveness radically changes the dynamic of a pandemic, it's so easy to see that I don't understand what can lead someone to deny this fact besides bad faith.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree, I downvoted the comment because it appeared to be made in bad faith (and from another comment I posted on this topic, I obviously share the concern that this HIV vaccine may lose efficacy over time). Also, it's not hard to see how a vaccine for HIV would be much more effective at slowing pandemic progression than a vaccine for an airborne virus, even if the vaccines conferred the same benefits. Right now, if you get HIV, you are essentially contagious for life until you get on antiretrovirals that can bring your viral load to undetectable (and, you also need to be on those antiretrovirals for life). If an HIV vaccine prevented you from having a long term infection, it could potentially fully end the pandemic.
  - 5y ago

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

As I understand it, the reason an HIV vaccine has been so difficult to create is that HIV mutates so easily. I understand the basics behind how mRNA vaccines are generated, but I don't understand why this approach would be expected to have any more success in evading the high mutation potential of HIV than other vaccine types. After all, it was even a concern with new coronavirus variants that the original Moderna vaccine would be less effective against them (and, indeed, while the original vaccine is still highly effective against all variants, my understanding is that it is less so than the original variant). And SARS-COV-2 mutates much less easily than HIV. Can someone with more knowledge explain the thought process behind this?

helloworld 5y ago
"Prof. William Schief explains how the novel #HIV #vaccine being tested in human clinical trials can trigger the right #Bcells of the immune system to achieve the much sought after broadly neutralizing #antibodies." https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch/status/1358120854970912769 https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch/status/13581208549709127...
- dmix 5y ago
  Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmXpMmvHWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmXpMmvHWw This explains the background on broadly neutralizing antibodies that the other commenter `mlyle` mentions. Worth the watch.
spamizbad 5y ago
One reason is that mRNA vaccines can be developed much faster than traditional vaccines. So the idea is you have a better chance of "outrunning" a strain.
- f6v 5y ago
  I think slowly will come the realization that mRNA vaccines aren’t as fast to develop as people thought. Sputnik/AstraZeneca vaccines were released almost at the same time as Moderna/Pfizer. Yes, the latter were first commercial mRNA vaccines, but the technology is nevertheless rather mature. I watched a lecture by the people credited with creating mRNA vaccines and it turns out people have been working on the technology for decades. Now, the thing is that you can’t just sequence a virus, do bioinformatics, synthesize mRNA and package it into a nano particle. I mean, you can, but chances are it’s going to fail like the CureVac vaccine. The mRNA that gets packaged needs to be modified (I believe with alternative bases) to achieve desired effect. If mRNA vaccine was as magical as it was marketed, we wouldn’t be getting 3-4(and soon 5?) doses of the same vaccine with the emergence of new variants. Rather, there would be delta- and omicron-specific vaccine.

abeppu 5y ago

I'm a bit confused by the timing of this. Here's a press release from only a couple months ago, in which a Moderna partnership on an mRNA vaccine showed some benefit in macaques, but mostly in delaying infection (i.e. most macaques in the treatment group still got SHIV). Only two of seven in the treatment group actually remained uninfected. It sounded like researches wanted to refine and validate their protocol before moving to human trials. > “We are now refining our vaccine protocol to improve the quality and quantity of the VLPs produced. This may further increase vaccine efficacy and thus lower the number of prime and boost inoculations needed to produce a robust immune response. If confirmed safe and effective, we plan to conduct a Phase 1 trial of this vaccine platform in healthy adult volunteers,” said Dr. Lusso. I interpreted "If confirmed safe and effective" to mean that more animal tests would happen. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/experimental-mrna-hiv-vaccine-safe-shows-promise-animals https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/experimental-m...

f6v 5y ago
It’s hot tech, maybe driven by the desire to pump share prices.
meepmorp 5y ago
2 out of 7 macaques didn't get infected after 13 weekly (anally administered) exposures to SHIV. The other 5 averaged 8 exposures before infection took place vs 3 exposures in the control group. That's actually pretty good at preventing infection - 28.5% avoided infection completely, with the remainder clearly having a much more robust immunity than control.
- abeppu 5y ago
  I mean, it seems like it did _something_ meaningful. But if you were part of an at-risk population, how promising would you really consider an animal trial that, for most treatment subjects, delayed infection by 5 weeks? Note, these animals had received multiple vaccines/boosters spaced out over a year before they were exposed to SHIV, i.e they spent 10x as long being vaccinated as they resisted infection.

unnouinceput 5y ago

tacLog 5y ago
It's important to remember that any community can spread it. Needle sharing among intravenous drug users comes to mind. However, you can't deny that HIV has struck a generational blow upon the LGBTQ+ community. If this works it will be the end to an era of fear. Many will remember those that where lost and wish this only happened sooner. A new reason to celebrate is underselling the impact this will have.
- ipnon 5y ago
  It seems to me like lumping lesbians and the queer into this calculus is a little insensitive because it was almost exclusively gay men and trans women who bore the brunt. I'm sure this press release ran by a publicist who said, "we have to use all the letters or else we'll get torn to shreds on Twitter."
  - tacLog 5y ago
    I get what your saying. But on the other hand we are just talking about celebrating this. I feel like those sub-communities are probably more aware of the impact HIV than the average cis straight person and are probably going to celebrate this as well. I don't get what's insensitive about it at all so maybe I am missing your point.
    - ipnon 5y ago
      If we get down to brass tacks, this is a situation where sex takes precedence over gender. The HIV epidemic in the West was borne by XY people, and the history of HIV in America is by and large an XY history. What are we obfuscating by painting this history with a broadly "queer" brush?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

ukie 5y ago

hatware 5y ago

gitfan86 5y ago
I don't follow your logic. Because Fauci, Trump, Biden said things that turned out to be false, new medicines can no longer be created? Or are you saying that new medicines can still be created, but you will not take them out of spite toward the lies told during the pandemic?
- hatware 5y ago
  - gitfan86 5y ago
    That is fine if you think things would have worked out better if we just treated Covid like another strain of the flu. 99% of ER Doctors disagree with you. If you think their opinion doesn't matter, that is fine too, but I don't see why I should ignore their opinions and agree with yours.
    - hatware 5y ago
spywaregorilla 5y ago
I would be happy if they cured cancer.
- hatware 5y ago
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    It's a cute common conspiracy theory but it doesn't really hold up. Modern pharma is making progress all the time. E.g. as shown, an HIV vaccine.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

I think that this might be a follow-on benefit of Operation Warp Speed which had a post a few days ago. From that post, it seems like one of the benefits to Moderna (apart from a big cash infusion) was that Moderna had the science, but did not actually have the experience and pipelines of actually bringing a drug to a broad market. They did not have the experience and infrastructure for large scale human trials and for the large scale manufacturing. Experience with creating, testing, manufacturing, and rolling out the Covid vaccines, were I am sure invaluable in helping Moderna become a "full-stack" drug company. Very excited by this development and looking forward to (hopefully promising) results. It will be wonderful if we can make HIV/AIDS something future generations will only know from history books.

throwaway73838 5y ago

kahrl 5y ago
Luc Montagnier. Yes he's a quack now and yes he was immediately refuted. https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-Nobel-winner-Luc-Montagnier-says-Covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab-laboratory https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disputed-French-...
dr_zoidberg 5y ago
I remember headlines saying that, but the most I'm finding is that the paper that claimed such links was quickly retracted from bioRxiv[0]. I'm a bit lost as to how misinformation played in placing a Nobel Prize winner in the mix, possibly they mentioned there was research suggesting that link. [0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/03/retraction-faulty-coronavirus-paper-good-moment-for-science/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/03/retraction-faulty-corona...
ceejayoz 5y ago
The same guy believes in homeopathy and that DNA can teleport via radio waves into a sample of pure water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation It's a whole thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
- throwaway73838 5y ago
  It wasn’t just him saying that. I once went on a forum for a journal article, and there were two camps of biologists - those speaking about the similar sections, and those refuting the claims. I noticed that most of the refutations came from scientists with Chinese sounding names. I realize that this is just anecdotal, and you can choose to believe me or not. But that’s what I saw. You may still be able to find it on Google. Also, from the first para of his Wiki page: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory. Such a claim has been refuted by other virologists.[6][7][8][9] He has been criticised by other academics for using his Nobel prize status to "spread dangerous health messages outside his field of knowledge".[10] Looks like he’s been at least partially vindicated.

sharken 5y ago

If a HIV vaccine really is happening, that will really brighten the memory of the last two COVID years. And as always there are some great insights to the inner working of the vaccine, Hacker News doesn't disappoint.

csours 5y ago
A LOT of really good science was funded over the last two years. It will be a while before it's all understood and integrated. It does give me a little bit of hope.

somesanityplz 5y ago

hnarn 5y ago
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
- khazhoux 5y ago
  Sadly, given that it's a new (throwaway?) account used to post in a thread about a vaccine, there's a high chance this is another neo-anti-vaxxer, here to tell us why this is "not a vaccine" and all that.
  - somesanityplz 5y ago
    I am just making a couple of considerations about you, audience, considering I silently read what you comment for years already. This is not a throwaway account. I just felt the need to express my opinion, if you are sad about that, and the only way to answer me is to label me as a "neo-anti-vaxer" you are just demonstrating my point.
    - khazhoux 5y ago
      But see, you didn't actually make a point in your original comment. I don't mean that rudely. You referred to the "arrogance [we] likely use to discuss the correctness of [our] code." What are actually saying here? If you want to engage in discussion, I encourage you to use plain language. Accuse the community directly of whatever charge you're bringing, and then we can debate.
      - somesanityplz 5y ago
        Would you deploy in production a software (which lack of safety could be critical) without being sure (or have proof) if it will effectively work as expected in 1+ years? Would you be relaxed being the administrator of such a software?

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

mleonhard 5y ago

The them.us article [0] says: > but we’ll be praying ... that by next year, LGBTQ+ communities around the globe will have a new reason to celebrate. This perpetuates the myth that HIV is mainly a problem for gay people. Can we change to another article, such as [1]? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports Moderna's HIV vaccine research [2]. [0] https://www.them.us/story/hiv-aids-vaccine-human-trials-moderna https://www.them.us/story/hiv-aids-vaccine-human-trials-mode... [1] https://www.engadget.com/moderna-mrna-hiv-vaccine-trials-225655400.html https://www.engadget.com/moderna-mrna-hiv-vaccine-trials-225... [2] https://www.modernatx.com/ecosystem/strategic-collaborators/foundations-advancing-mrna-science-and-research https://www.modernatx.com/ecosystem/strategic-collaborators/...

moooo99 5y ago
> This perpetuates the myth that HIV is mainly a problem for gay people. Can we change to another article, such as [1]? But how is that a myth? The US Gov site [0] that is linked in the engadget article literally states that > HIV continues to have a disproportionate impact on certain populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities and gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. Fruther down: > Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM)b are the population most affected by HIV in the U.S.: > MSM accounted for 69% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States. While I agree that the focusing only on LGBTQ+ as a group is not an ideal way to put it, there is no myth in claiming that gay/bisexual men are at the highest risk of getting it. [0] https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat...
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  This number changes dramatically when you look globally. MSM is about 23% of new infections https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics#footnote8_q5xi4ue https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics#footnot...
  - collegeburner 5y ago
    Because it include subsaharan africa globally. Readership for this site is probably only in United States and here it is mostly gay men

localhost 5y ago

Last night I read this Nature review paper [1] and this history article [2] that describe the parallel investigations in both mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticle technology that ultimately led to the development of mRNA based vaccines. As we come up on Nobel Prize season, the second article is particularly interesting if you want to get a preview of some of the possible recipients. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00358-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00358-0 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

pwned1 5y ago

Since the mRNA covid vaccines seem to only work for 90-180 days, why would a vaccine for anything else be different?

535188B17C93743 5y ago
I don't know anything about vaccines or their validity, but even then, the current solutions are a shot once a month or PrEP every day... so twice a year sounds pretty great to me?
thehappypm 5y ago
AIDS and COVID are extremely different. If you are exposed to COVID but got the vax a year ago, you’re likely to have symptoms. You probably don’t actively have antibodies. But that’s okay! You might have some symptoms, in fact they might be severe, but given enough time your immunity will ramp back up, and you still will clear the virus. If you clear HIV after a week or two, that is a HUGE win for you.
_ph_ 5y ago
You are wrong. mRNA covid vaccines don't "only work for 90-180 days". First of all, you need 3 shots to get fully vaccinated in the first place. This is one shot more than the original approved plan, but a very common thing about vaccinations. I got 3 measels shots for example. This has to do with how the immune system works, repeated shots cause different effects which lead to improved immunity. Also, we are facing very different variants. With the original strain and the first variants, the vaccines would have done their job with just 2 shots and we might even have achieved herd immunity. But delta and especially omicron did happen. Still, with 3 shots, the vaccines against the first strain are still excellent in protecting against severe disease and there is no indication yet that this protection is dropping significantly over time. To stress this: we are talking about effects due to the nature of the human immune system and the virus mutations. There is no indication what so ever, that the mRNA technology produces shorter lasting immune responses. Quite the contrary, the mRNA vaccines are the ones which proved the most efficient against SARS-Cov-2.

NoblePublius 5y ago

mikaeluman 5y ago

I remember growing up being terrified of HIV/AIDS. The idea of something being permanent and transmissible via sex, and literally dismounting your immune defense to all other diseases on the planet... To this day it still terrifies me, even though the treatments have become so good. Each year it seems there are new stories about HIV research, and progress keeps being made. I pray for positive results and am really amazed. We have a lot to be thankful for.

suifbwish 5y ago
- ImaCake 5y ago
  Just to address this. There is no evidence anyone produced HIV in a lab and then released it, accidentally or not, out into the world. Scientists have established a pretty robust causal chain for where HIV came from. It is plausible that HIV was spreading between humans before we even really had the field of Molecular Biology that would have allowed us to “make” HIV.
  - suifbwish 5y ago
    I didn’t say it was not natural. I simply said it would not surprise me if it were not. It’s interesting how even asking a question about things can become taboo.
    - biorach 5y ago
      No one said it was taboo. You made a dumb comment, someone politely explained real science to you.
      - ImaCake 5y ago
        Thanks for this :) Probably the best thing about the culture of science is that ignorance is often answered with polite explanation. Many scientists I know expect their own ignorant comments to be answered the same way. It is much harder to argue against a polite and well argued scientific response!

erglkjklrh 5y ago

egrlk45ylkj 5y ago

db1234 5y ago

Does anyone know if mRNA tech can be potentially used to cure food allergy in the future? I know that the pattern is to train immune system to recognize a foreign object and attack it but is it possible to train immune system using mRNA to not attack in certain cases? I did come across a paper from 2018 regarding potential use of mRNA to fight food allergy but I haven't come across any updates since then.

ianlevesque 5y ago
I am very not a biologist but I can't picture how this would work. Immunotherapy for food allergies, specifically peanuts, involves basically microdosing the allergen until the immune system chills out. mRNA wouldn't help there, even if you made a vaccine that exposed a peanut protein it'd have the opposite effect you were going for. If you took a different approach and expressed a protein that suppresses the immune response, then in just days when the mRNA degrades the effect would be lost. I'm sure we will get many miracles from mRNA tech but this doesn't seem like a likely one to me.
- suifbwish 5y ago
  The mRNA would actually code for the protein (allergen) so they would not need to be injected. The main advantage of mRNA tech is that you can use the same device to create an limited number of inoculations by simply providing blueprints and letting your cells do the rest.
- hwbehrens 5y ago
  I am only moderately not a biologist, but this seems essentially correct -- vaccines are trying to address false negatives, but allergies are (in theory) caused by false positives. The mechanics of T cell training in the thymus for self/nonself discrimination are only partially understood, but any approach to rewrite antigen recognition would be (A) extremely risky, by potentially inducing massive autoimmune effects if anything went wrong, and (B) much more impactful for e.g. organ transplantation than allergic response.

NotChina 5y ago

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Will you still be able catch HIV and pass it on to others all the same, with "lesser symptoms", until the day you die from HIV? The post 2021 changed definition of "vaccine" is a bit of any oxymoron.

MisterSandman 5y ago
What change? Vaccines have never been said to be 100% effective on an individual basis.
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  The definition of vaccine was changed by CDC last year: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... Were previous vaccines at least as effective as not getting vaccinated? Ontario data is showing vaccinated getting infected at higher rates than unvaccinated. (3rd grahp) https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=1 https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=1 If that's the case, its more like a therapeutic than vaccine. Literally going out to get some sunshine is therapeutic. I'm sure billion dollar pharma companies love that they can sell half baked products to this lower standard going forward. At least for most other products you can get a refund for something that doesn't work half the time. In this situation you can't even sue if it caused you injury. Hope you don't support this corrupt fuckry.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago

Is this a measles type of vaccine or a covid type of vaccine?

a45a33s 5y ago

this was the real endgame of the vaccine mandates, force the whole world to participate in a trial of mRNA technology so that it could start being used in other profitable products.

ezfe 5y ago
It's a good thing they didn't mandate that you get an mRNA vaccine .

nunez 5y ago

This is an even bigger deal than COVID vaccines. Many third-world nations struggle hard with HIV/AIDS; this can be revolutionary for them.

macksd 5y ago

I'm curious how trials like this work, in that if you engage in practices that leave you at risk of HIV infection, you really ought to use condoms or other prophylactic measures. Without telling people they no longer recommend such practices, I wonder how they get enough signal to prove efficacy.

make3 5y ago
I assume they will test it in regions of the world that are more affected

edmcnulty101 5y ago

I have a friend who has HIV with a zero virus count. Does anyone know if this will combat the latent virus?

MisterSandman 5y ago
From what I've read, no. Once you're U=U, it seems like no treatment can rid the virus completely. I would love to be corrected though.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Thanks for info. Thats expected. Just wanted to check and be sure. I know dealing with the latent HIV has been a big challenge.

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

coffeeblack 5y ago

So all it took to get here was €10 bln from EU governments and $10 bln from the US government to push the rapid development of mRNA tech? Shouldn’t this be done regularly? How about $20 bln to finally get a good malaria vaccine?

rob_c 5y ago
Don't worry they'll have Africa sign a contract saying they can't sue when it turns out to not quite work as it's hyped to to.

rob_c 5y ago

This is going to unfortunately suffer the wrath of their last flu jab being mislabeled for efficacy, safety and longevity. I'm not saying it doesn't work it clearly does cut deaths but I think public option is starting to irrevocably sway based on regions which pushed it first. Not to mention the "reduces transmission by X" number keeps dropping with more studies and data...

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

I would never put anything made made by Moderna in my body even if I was on my deathbed.

husamia 5y ago

I thought we would never find cure for HIV. This is such huge news.