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Bill Gates gave an address at J.P. Morgan's 36th Annual Healthcare Conference in San Francisco:
[There] is reason to hope that the insights uncovered in ongoing immunotherapy research for cancer will eventually help us control all infectious diseases. This would be a huge victory for humanity—and potentially a significant market for the life sciences.
Others seem to think so too. Venture capitalists like Bob Nelsen and Bob More have helped raise over $500 million for VIR Biotechnology—including funding from us—to discover and develop treatments for serious infectious diseases.
We are also investors in Immunocore, which is using T-cell technology to help stimulate the body's immune system. Initially, Immunocore's "T-cell receptor" technology targeted cancers, but it could also be applied against infectious diseases.
We are backing companies like CureVac and Moderna on mRNA approaches for vaccine and drug development, which have the potential to help us tackle cancer. This approach is also intriguing as a potential immunological intervention for HIV, malaria, flu and the Zika virus.
And mRNA vaccines are likely to be cheaper, easier, and faster to make than traditional vaccines. This would be particularly helpful in containing epidemics—whether they occur through nature or are the result of an intentional biological attack. Today, it typically takes up to 10 years to develop and license a new vaccine. To significantly curb deaths from a fast-moving airborne pathogen, we would have to get that down considerably—to 90 days or less.
Also at NBF.
Related: Bill Gates Commits $100 Million to Alzheimer's Research
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:17AM (2 children)
Actually, throughout most of history, those who could afford medical "treatment" died much more quickly than the poors who had to just "walk it off". Leeches, and bloodletting were common. Probably killed Rene Descartes. Physicians used to have a coat, and the coat had two pockets. One pocket held a bottle of Laudanaum, Tincture of Opium. The other held a bottle of sublimate of Mercury. If the patient had dysentary, a bit of Laudanuam. Tighten you right up, as every Heroin addict knows. If the patient was constipated, nothing like Mercury poisoning to loosen the bowels. But, like I said, if you could afford a "doctor", you probably were dead.
On the other hand, if you were poor, and you survived the sickness, guess what? Natural immunity!! Evidence-based medicine has changed all this, so the rich now survive, as do others. Fortunately, the CDC has now banned the term "evidence-bassed medicine", so perhaps we can start killing off the rich by means of medical treatment again, in the near future.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:19PM
Wishful thinking, magister... a very interesting one, but still wishful thinking.
For example, take Apple's Steve J... oh, wait... maybe there is something to your theory, maybe indeed Bill Gates paid the doctors to eliminate competition (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:13PM
So is it now called "evidence-baritoned", "evidence-tenored" or "evidence-countertenored"?
Or maybe it was due to gender issues, and now it's called "evidence-contraltoed"?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.