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Malaria Vaccine Invented!
- Thread starter Drrrrrr. Celty
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It will be interesting to see how GSK profits from a vaccine like this considering the "customer" base this is intended for. 50% rate in preventing replication and subsequent transmitting the virus is a huge milestone however regardless of finances. A great step in the elimination process
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You know what? You suck at starting threads. (But interesting topic, regardless.)
Discuss.
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Good to know that anyway.
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GSK has been clear they will NOT profit from the vaccine. It will be sold @ 5% over cost with the 5% going directly to tropical medicine research.
This work is heavily funded by the Gates foundation so $$ is not an issue if it works.
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What they should do is make genetically modified mosquitoes that secrete the vaccine in their saliva and then release a hoard of them in Africa, India, and other tropical regions where malaria is prevalent. So that getting bit by one of the genetically modified mosquitoes = getting the vaccine. It would be cheaper in the long run because instead of producing the vaccine in a lab you're essentially using the mosqutio's genetic machinery and "natural" resources (blood) to make the vaccine. And instead of spending money and man hours transporting and storing the vaccine and giving innoculations you use the mosquitoes to do that for free.
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👍
Exactly. And why stop at mosquitoes? Lets implant vaccine in hummingbirds (so plants don't get malaria), squirrels (acorns), cheetahs (Do I even have to say it? Fastest land animal, if someone refuses vaccination BAM! they get it).
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If you sell your home in Los Altos Hills, we could prob just like do the damn thang ourselves.
Sell your house and buy 17 test tubes, 3 burners, 1 of those midget spatula things and 22 Erlenmeyer flasks (whatever the hell they are for)... Oh, and a round bottom flask for boiling ... If I learned anything from Breaking Bad, it's that, to properly boil, you need a round bottom flask. If we don't need to boil the mosquitoes to make them mutated, we can just make some tea or something.
In the meantime, while you are busy selling your house, I will go and buy an RV and start catching some mosquitoes.
Nobel prize is ours broski.
PS: do u think this will get me into med skool?
PSS: it was pretty creative thinking, Mr. Flatearth. I could see a movie based on it.
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...except this would be vaccinating people against their knowledge and without consent. Not to meantion that there are other diseases carried by mosquitoes. We wouldn't want people to get bitten on purpose only to get dengue or yellow fever (depending on where you are and what types of mosquitoes are around) or another lovely mosquito vectored disease.
Interesting idea though.
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This is a great step but it's still only 50% effective. Frazier, your sickle cell trait is still worth a bit!
Not naysaying, but 50% protection is marginal for a vaccine. This suggests that they are on the right track though.
As for the profit thing...good question, but I do believe the R&D was heavily subsidized (if not fully) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Not naysaying, but 50% protection is marginal for a vaccine. This suggests that they are on the right track though.
As for the profit thing...good question, but I do believe the R&D was heavily subsidized (if not fully) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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As someone in the malaria field, I find it incredibly random that there are so many articles on this over the last 1-2 days, although this vaccine has been in development for decades and most of the well-cited results were published weeks or months ago.
But anyway...
Although this is not a perfect vaccine, it could be an awesome thing. One of the biggest problems with malaria is eradication. In places where mosquitoes live through most of the year, it is very difficult to control malaria through medication alone (you treat a patient, but 2 weeks later they are reinfected...or, you treat them but don't kill latent parasites, leading to relapse and yet more spread). Although this vaccine may not be perfect, it means that there may soon be fewer reservoirs for parasites. This means that drugs and vector control will have a bigger impact when it comes to eradicating disease, and that is a step in the right direction.
Also, malaria is notoriously tricky when it comes to immune evasion. The fact that a working vaccine exists that involves malarial protein is a pretty big deal in itself.
Also, for the sake of discussion: there was a similar media blitz for this about 8 years ago. Discussion died down when some secondary side effects came out of the woodwork (higher likelihood of death or neurological damage due cerebral malaria in treated individuals, etc).
But anyway...
Although this is not a perfect vaccine, it could be an awesome thing. One of the biggest problems with malaria is eradication. In places where mosquitoes live through most of the year, it is very difficult to control malaria through medication alone (you treat a patient, but 2 weeks later they are reinfected...or, you treat them but don't kill latent parasites, leading to relapse and yet more spread). Although this vaccine may not be perfect, it means that there may soon be fewer reservoirs for parasites. This means that drugs and vector control will have a bigger impact when it comes to eradicating disease, and that is a step in the right direction.
Also, malaria is notoriously tricky when it comes to immune evasion. The fact that a working vaccine exists that involves malarial protein is a pretty big deal in itself.
Also, for the sake of discussion: there was a similar media blitz for this about 8 years ago. Discussion died down when some secondary side effects came out of the woodwork (higher likelihood of death or neurological damage due cerebral malaria in treated individuals, etc).
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