Any "non-spike" protein vaccines coming soon?

2,954 Views | 15 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by wessimo
Born&Raised
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https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-safrica-variant-idUSKBN29Q0SK

Long story short - vaccines based on spike proteins are looking like they WILL be less effective.

I have seen some doctors say that virus do NOT become more deadly - so what say y'all to this?

Honestly
cone
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AG
not good
samsal75
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AG
The next focus to keep everyone locked up for another year???
HotardAg07
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AG
The OP is really distorting what the article is saying.

The article is talking about a specific strain of COVID found in South Africa that has been shown to evade MONOclonal antibodies (different from vaccines), and MAY evade the current spike protein based vaccines.

Vaccines are polyclonal and also teach people's immune systems to mount their own antibody response, as opposed to monoclonal antibodies which do not.

Please read this closely for what it says and does not say:
Quote:

British scientists and politicians have expressed concern that vaccines currently being deployed or in development could be less effective against the variant.

The paper said it remained to be seen how effective current vaccines were against 501Y.V2, which would only be determined by large-scale clinical trials. But results showed the need for new vaccines to be designed to tackle the evolving threat, it said.
The Big12Ag
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I take the overall pandemic seriously but also think many articles are just click bait. The article seems to want to inspire nervousness without much fact to back why.

Excerpt, with bolded text from me:

The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa can evade the antibodies that attack it in treatments using blood plasma from previously recovered patients, and may reduce the efficacy of the current line of vaccines, scientists said on Wednesday.

Regarding the "can evade blood plasma antibodies", the article later adds:

Convalescent blood plasma from previous patients has not been shown to be effective when administered to severely ill patients requiring intensive care for COVID-19, but it is approved in several countries as an emergency measure.

So, blood plasma not effective when treating seriously ill patients with "normal" Covid-19 but also if they have this new variant it can "evade the blood plasma antibodies"? I guess it is not clear to me as a reader how effective blood plasma is for normal Covid vs the new variant.

Regarding the "may reduce the efficacy of vaccines", the key word is "may" to me. They offered no proof and only said it needs to be studied.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Covid-19 mutations based on what I have read. I don't know enough if each is considered a "variant", maybe a variant is a more sever mutation? But they article doesn't have any clear concrete facts, in my opinion, that makes me worry and it seems like clickbait. But as always, an expert will chime in and I'll learn more.
cone
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AG
a lot has been made of the UK and SA variants

what about all the mutations inevitable in the giant India population that's just not being surveilled in the same way
HotardAg07
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AG
This article does a very good job breaking down the situation on the variants, immunity, vaccinations, etc. The writer does a good job of breaking down what the concerns are, where they come from, and what does it mean.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/health/coronavirus-variants-immunity.html

Key Excerpts:
Quote:

The steady drumbeat of reports about new variants of the coronavirus first in Britain, then in South Africa, Brazil and the United States have brought a new worry: Will vaccines protect against these altered versions of the virus?

The answer so far is yes, several experts said in interviews. But two small new studies, posted online Tuesday night, suggest that some variants may pose unexpected challenges to the immune system, even in those who have been vaccinated a development that most scientists had not anticipated seeing for months, even years.

The findings result from laboratory experiments with blood samples from groups of patients, not observations of the virus spreading in the real world. The studies have not yet been peer-reviewed.
But experts who reviewed the papers agreed that the findings raised two disturbing possibilities. People who had survived mild infections with the coronavirus may still be vulnerable to infection with a new variant; and more worryingly, the vaccines may be less effective against the variants.

Existing vaccines will still prevent serious illness, and people should continue getting them, said Dr. Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, who led one of the studies: "If your goal is to keep people out of the hospital, then this is going to work just fine."
But the vaccines may not prevent people from becoming mildly or asymptomatically infected with the variants, he said. "They may not even know that they were infected," Dr. Nussenzweig added. If the infected can still transmit the virus to others who are not immunized, it will continue to claim lives.

Quote:

In most people, infection with the coronavirus leads to a strong immune response; the vaccines seem to induce an even more powerful response. Two doses of the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, at least, produce neutralizing antibodies at levels that are higher than those acquired through natural infection.

Even if antibody effectiveness were reduced tenfold, the vaccines would still be quite effective against the virus, said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

And while neutralizing antibodies are essential for preventing infection, the vaccines and natural infection also lead to production of thousands of other types of antibodies, not to mention various immune cells that retain a memory of the virus and can be roused to action when the body encounters it again.

Even when confronted with variants, those other components of the immune system may be enough to prevent serious illness, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. In clinical trials, the vaccines protected people from illness after just one dose, when the levels of neutralizing antibodies were low or undetectable, he noted.
The Big12Ag
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Damn I took too long to type and now look 7 minutes late! good discussions.
Proposition Joe
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Article isn't really click-bait. It's not something that should cause massive alarm, but I didn't feel like it was written in that tone.

News still needs to be reported.
amercer
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AG
" Long story short - vaccines based on spike proteins are looking like they WILL be less effective."

I think this is incorrect, both as a reading of the current science and as a full reading of the article.

However there are plenty of people reporting it this way, so maybe saying that YOU were distorting it was a bit pejorative.

Still, the science in question has been addressed by other posters, so maybe lower the temperature a bit now.
plain_o_llama
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This is the paper the Reuters article is referencing....

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427166v1.full.pdf
Born&Raised
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As I predicted - my response to someone accusing me of trying to do something (that is wrong) is now the focus on the thread rather than the first question I asked.

He accused me of distorting the article - I did not... which is of course one of the time tested tactics of 'ninja distortion' - he knew I was not distorting anything but asking a simple question - about spike based protein based vaccine which is 100% of the market.

My question was simple and straight forward and based on science.

Spike based vaccines are going to have less of an effect over time - so what about JJ and novavax... thoughts.

That was it... but of course I was accused of distorting - which is an insult because it insinuates a lack of honesty and truth Specifically intent.
HotardAg07
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AG
You're ignoring the content of your actual post where you stated " vaccines based on spike proteins are looking like they WILL be less effective. "

I thought it was important to point out to the many people who wouldn't click on that link and read the article that 1. That's not what the article said and 2. That's not what scientists are saying. Those distinctions matter.

As for your attack on me, I welcome you to check my posting history and find examples where I have called the coronavirus just a flu or downplayed the dangerous. I have been attacked more often than not as a "corona bro" on the website than anything.
cone
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AG
thank you for your service
plain_o_llama
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Born&Raised said:



Spike based vaccines are going to have less of an effect over time - so what about JJ and novavax... thoughts.

It is a little confusing to follow the Vaccine race. Here are a few things I believe to be true. Feel free to correct me.

There are 4 basic approaches to Covid vaccines

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/there-are-four-types-covid-19-vaccines-heres-how-they-work




Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is a Viral Vector type.

Novavax is a Protein Subunit type

Both rely on elements of the SARS-CoV2 spike protein in producing an immunological response. Accordingly there will be potential for a change in effectiveness as the wild virus mutates.

The difficulty is that none of these approaches escapes this limitation. They all are based on teaching the body to recognize known protein segments that make up the virus. If the virus mutates, the "reference proteins" may have changed. How much that degrades the vaccine performance will likely differ between the different vaccines and the types of mutations.
plain_o_llama
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As to the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, this is a straightforward explanation of how it works
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine.html

or you can go here

https://www.prevention.com/health/a35227295/johnson-and-johnson-covid-19-vaccine/

How does the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine work?

Johnson & Johnson has an andenovector vaccine, which uses double-stranded DNA to promote an immune response in the body. This technology works differently than the mRNA vaccines available from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which both use single-stranded RNA.

In the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, researchers added a piece of genetic material from the novel coronavirus' spike protein (the piece that latches onto human cells) into another virus, Adenovirus 26, which was modified so it has the ability to enter cells but not reproduce inside of them. Adenoviruses are common viruses that usually cause cold-like symptoms, but because the one used in the vaccine was altered and cannot replicate, it can't make you sick. (Other COVID-19 vaccines, including Oxford and AstraZeneca's candidate, uses similar adenovirus technology.)

When you get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the modified adenovirus carrying a piece of the spike protein latches onto the surface of your cells. It's pulled inside, where the modified virus travels to the cell nucleus, home to its DNA. The adenovirus then puts its DNA into the nucleus, the spike protein gene is read by the cell, and it's then copied into messenger RNA (mRNA).


After that, the mRNA leaves the nucleus and serves as a set of instructions for other cells, so they begin making spike proteins. Those are then recognized by your immune system, and your body reacts by producing antibodies to the perceived threat (even though no threat exists).

Your immune system cells then remember how to fight the distinct piece of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, so if you come into contact with it in the future, your body will have the capability to fight it more efficiently.


wessimo
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AG
The world is banking on vaccines to end this pandemic. If that assumption turns out to be wrong there are going to be some major consequences, likely including a collapse of equity markets and a financial crisis.
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