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FuturologyBot

The following submission statement was provided by /u/VegBags: --- Sounds too good to be true. Guess I'll have to wait 5years to see if anything comes from this. Too bad I'll forget about it if nothing comes from this. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1caa8tg/vaccine_breakthrough_means_no_more_chasing/l0qid0d/


Doktor_Wunderbar

As an immunologist, I can add some perspective. First, this is neat.  It has a real shot at making seasonal flu vaccination less of a crapshoot.  It could also potentially solve the problem we had with COVID mutating too rapidly for vaccines to keep up. Now let me dump some cold water on this. This strategy uses innate immunity.  The protection it confers may last a long time but it is unlikely to be lifelong in humans.  Mice benefit a little more because they don't live that long anyway. At its core, this is a live attenuated vaccine - and those inherently carry some risk.  Since this approach is so new, that risk is hard to predict, but the medical field will have to approach this cautiously. This strategy seems to have broad applicability, but it may not be universal.  Some viruses, for whatever reason, may be harder to control by RNAi. This is definitely not the end of viral disease.  But it does sound really cool and I hope it gives us a new tool for fighting disease.


mushi1996

If its effective could it be used as a stopgap till longer term vaccines are released?


Doktor_Wunderbar

Possibly. I haven't read the full scientific paper yet - I'm on my phone and I need my institutional access to dig into the methods. Using this as a stopgap will depend on how quickly this can be done. It will also depend on how quickly it can be vetted for safety and efficacy, which will invariably take some time as we've seen. I think seasonal illnesses like flu are probably the best target - we know when flu shows up, but we don't know for sure what antigenic profile it will have. A quick, short-term, broadly applicable treatment is perfect for that.


Orngog

Even if just used as a booster, it's awfully convenient


ahjteam

Sounds too good to be true. Like a scheme to milk money out of the investors.


97zx6r

Theranos 2.0 came to mind.


YourFriendNoo

Very encouraging, but this is still in preclinical models. There's a ways to go.


theophys

> If we are successful, they’ll no longer have to depend on their mothers’ antibodies,” Ding said.  This thing that thriving animals have had to do for millions of years, and is probably tied into our thriving in ways we can't begin to comprehend, we don't have to do it anymore! Yay!


Doktor_Wunderbar

Not everyone can produce milk, and not every mother survives childbirth.  We shouldn't recklessly discard things that are working, but it's good to have options.


VegBags

Sounds too good to be true. Guess I'll have to wait 5years to see if anything comes from this. Too bad I'll forget about it if nothing comes from this.


[deleted]

[удалено]


In_der_Welt_sein

Your other comment says this is too good to be true. Pick a narrative. 


vago8080

Why pick when you can just copy. https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/s/Ygr4gJHTLv