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Derek Lowe over at Science has a roundup of the status of current (article published 29 June 2020) Coronavirus vaccine trials/research.
This roundup of current vaccine research/trials includes information about many vaccine trials, broken down by vaccine types. These types include (quotes are all from TFA:
- Viral Vectors
This class uses some other infectious virus, but with its original genetic material removed. In its place goes genetic instructions to make coronavirus proteins, and when your infected cells do that, it will set off an immune response.
Number of trials (per TFA): 9
- Genetic Vaccines
These take DNA or RNA coding for coronavirus proteins and inject that directly into the bloodstream. "Directly" isn't quite the right word, though – for these things to work, they have to be formulated and modified to survive destruction in the blood, to be taken up through cell membranes, and to be used for protein production once they're inside.
Number of trials (per TFA): 8
- Recombinant protein vaccines
Here we get to a technique that really is used for human vaccines. The previous two categories force your own cells to make viral antigen proteins, but here you're making them industrially and just injecting them directly. The advantage can be that such protein production can be accomplished in many different ways and is already done on a large scale. That said, every new protein is a new project, with its own idiosyncrasies.
Number of trials (per TFA): 6
- Attenuated Virus Vaccines
This is another well-precedented vaccination technique. It involves producing a weakened form of the actual infectious virus, one that is not capable of causing damage but can still set off the immune system. There are several ways to do this, and it's a bit of an art form involving taking the virus through a huge number of replications in living cells as you select for variants that are less and less harmful.
Number of trials (per TFA): (None listed)
- Inactivated Virus Vaccines
This is also one that's also been used in medical practice for many years, and it's another inactivation step beyond the attenuated viruses. Heat or chemical agents are used to damage the virus to the point that it can no longer infect cells at all, but the plan is for there to be enough of the viral material left unaltered to still raise an immune response.
Number of trials (per TFA): 4
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday July 04 2020, @03:57PM (1 child)
That's probably true. I've thought about this a bunch and think that a quasi-public pharmaceutical development organization would likely make a big difference.
Research and production facilities can be set up via a quasi-public corporation using public monies (bonds perhaps?). This would be a non-profit organization whose primary function is to provide access to new and existing drugs *at the lowest price possible*.
This organization could then develop and manufacture new (and generic) pharmaceuticals and sell them *at cost*. What's more, Congress can ensure that this organization gets the right of first refusal [wikipedia.org] for development of new drugs created/discovered with government grants/support.
Any excess revenue would be plowed back into research on new pharmaceuticals.
Such an organization would have an incentive to create drugs that for-profit companies shun, like vaccines, malaria drugs, widely used generics. They can also develop/manufacture new, breakthrough drugs the research for which was done with public funds. Note that the quasi-public organization I'm suggesting should be *self-sustaining*.
All of the financials should be completely transparent as well.
This would have several positive effects:
1. Drugs developed can be provided at low(er) cost to those who paid (the public) for its development;
2. This would significantly mitigate efforts by bad actors to buy the rights to specific, widely used drugs and jack up the prices;
3. Financial transparency would shine a light on the enormous lie that charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for courses of new drugs to "recoup development costs."
There are other positives as well, I'm sure.
There are also potential downsides to this, although 'Gub'mint bad! Bad Gub'mint!' isn't one of them, wo unroll that newspaper.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 04 2020, @07:27PM
I absolutely agree!! I've commented many times here, other sites, and in person, that the whole medical world should be non-profit.
Interesting (to me anyway) observation: while both of my parents were ill over the past several years, I spent a lot of time in hospitals and other medical facilities. A fairly major metropolitan non-profit hospital system (4 hospitals, more than 1,000 beds total, more than 10,000 employees) had pretty lavish buildings, artwork, etc. A reasonable number of staff, including nurses (well, they're always overworked) but some had great attitudes, some pretty horrible really.
A for-profit small hospital, though, had an older building, small tight rooms, the only decorations I remember were personal photographs and cards on a bulletin board, and all of the staff were awesome, incredibly attentive and competent, got along like the best friends you've ever seen. So for-profit doesn't have to be bad or inefficient, but needs to be well run ... and we can't guarantee nor force that, so... back to your ideas!
So how do we get that to happen? Can we organize a letter-writing campaign to congress?