COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

Diarmuid wrote: »

How widespread is this view and I presume the implications for a vaccine would be grave?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/07/06/immunity-to-coronavirus-is-fragile-and-short-lived-expert-warns.html

It's a strong argument against "just letting it burn through the population". There is no doubt that there is at least short term protection from a natural infection. How long/short that is exactly, that's still a question to be answered.

What it means for a vaccine? Depends.
A vaccine is not a natural infection. Contrary to a natural infection, it doesn't suppress aspects of the immune system. A vaccine tries to elicit a response, as strong as it's safely possible, for example, by presenting an inactivated virus to the immune system along with an adjuvant (read irritant) so that it treats that bundle of proteins as a threat and starts producing specific antibodies, T cells, B cells and other things to fight it off. There are various ways, other than inactivated virus, to try and get that same effect - sub-unit, viral vector, attenuated virus, mRNA, saRNA, DNA, virus-like particle, etc.

The starkest example of this is Rabies. Humans cannot fight off that virus, our immune systems are ineffective in the case of a natural infection with it. Yet, by presenting a dead form of the same virus in a vaccine, our bodies are perfectly capable of producing an effective immune response that protects us from the wild type virus.

Similar, but far less lethal, the case of Human Papillomavirus (HPV), it sneaks past our immune system and there is little to no reaction to it during a natural infection and what little reaction to there is, it's not very good at protecting us. Yet, with a well designed vaccine, the protection is very robust and long lasting. The HPV VLP vaccine produces very stable antibody responses.

Here is a fascinating article about how different vaccines work on us:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/how-long-do-vaccines-last-surprising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer

hmmm wrote: »

I don't remember seeing data yet from Phase 1, but they've moved into phase 2/3 so obviously enough was seen in phase 1 to say it was safe and at least partially effective - they are testing 30,000 people in phase 3, it is hugely expensive.

The animal trials data was released
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.093195v1

Some data on the Phases:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-05-22-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begin-phase-iiiii-human-trials

What is particularly interesting about Oxford is that it is a platform they have been developing for years to target SARS-like Coronaviruses. Below is data for their MERS vaccine which was being developed before Covid arrived:
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/investigational-chimp-adenovirus-mers-cov-vaccine-protects-monkeys

Phase I clinical trials are not about effectiveness.

They are basically about giving a treatment to about a dozen healthy individuals to check it doesnt kill or significantly injure.

Getting through Phase I means nothing eith regards to effectiveness - if basically just means the treatment isnt extremely dangerous to humans.....

Edit- from the link it looks like Phase I had 1000 people which is a lot for phase I which is a lot - but still same principal.

Interesting podcast yesterday from Andy Slavitt. Slavitt was a former senior health administrator in the Obama administration, and now runs a health webcast. His podcast yesterday was all about Covid vaccines:
https://www.lemonadamedia.com/podcast/toolkit-everything-you-need-to-know-about-vaccines/


https://coronavirus.medium.com/there-is-a-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-cbfd5fe4ab72
"I spent the last 24 hours with three scientists, all of whom have seen vaccine data, two of whom are former regulators, all of whom have opinions. My core question was: What is the world going to look like in three years? (But I asked other things as well.)
I’ll start with a slew of good news.
The vaccine data from Oxford (being run in Brazil) looks strong. No real safety issues so far. Gives people the antibodies. People are getting it post-Covid-19 and some will get it in a challenge trial."

Some interesting stuff from the podcast:
- No real safety issues from the trials so far
- Two injections
- An 80 year old generated an immune response

Moderna phase 1 results are out.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna/moderna-phase-one-results-show-coronavirus-vaccine-safe-induces-immune-response-idUSKCN24F2SW

https://twitter.com/LucyWalkerlab/status/1283173961862447104

Meg is the best biotech commentator on TV.

Looks like potential good news for vaccine development and protection against Covid in general. Still plenty more work to be done before we can draw conclusions.

https://twitter.com/bertoletti_lab/status/1283330582923997185

"Patients recovered from #SARS 17 years ago still possess virus-specific memory T cells displaying cross-reactivity to #SARSCoV2"

"3) Over 50% of donors with no infection or contact with SARSCoV1/2 harbor expandable T cells cross-reactive to #SARSCoV2 likely induced by contact or infection with other #coronavirus strains "

Great thread folks. Thanks to all the knowledgeable posters here who are able to explain what is going on with the hunt for the vaccine. It provides a little chink of light amongst some of the more depressing threads linked to covid. Appreciate it.

One more for the armoury. This one is a VLP type, very curious to see their pre-clinical data when they release it and I hope all goes well in the clinic for them.

https://www.medicago.com/en/newsroom/medicago-begins-phase-i-clinical-trials-for-its-covid-19-vaccine-candidate/

I'm particularly fond of VLP types since I've read the history of the HPV vaccine and its unexpected effectiveness and durability of the immune response from it.

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Great interview with Sarah Gilbert who is leading the UofOxford vaccine.

Covid Vaccine Front-Runner Is Months Ahead of Her Competition

The University of Oxford candidate, led by Sarah Gilbert, might be through human trials in September. AstraZeneca has lined up agreements to produce 2 billion doses. Could this be the one?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/oxford-s-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-coronavirus-front-runner?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-businessweek&utm_content=businessweek&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Can't even imagine the pressure on her shoulders.

Deserves so much respect.

D.Q wrote: »

Can't even imagine the pressure on her shoulders.

Deserves so much respect.

Word of caution about her -she gets excited. She had quick tests out in a matter of days back in March-April but we hope she's right here!

"New Data on T Cells and the Coronavirus"

It also showed that there are, in fact, people who have both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells that recognize protein antigens from the new coronavirus even though they have never been exposed to SARS, MERS, or the new virus. The paper speculated that this might be due to cross-reactivity with proteins from the “common cold” coronaviruses”, and raised the possibility that there might be a part of the population that has at least some existing protection against the current pandemic

This could explain why children are not good receivers or transmitters of the virus. As far as I know children are exposed to a lot more coronaviruses compared to adults.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/new-data-on-t-cells-and-the-coronavirus