Electroporation, or electropermeabilization, is a microbiology technique in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing chemicals, drugs, or DNA to be introduced into the cell.
This is how the latest DNA vaccines will be administered. They will not use a viral vector. Developing immune response to the viral vector could be a real problem, especially when a booster is required.
That looks like a very painful process.
John
Maybe 3 on a pain scale of 10. Lasts about 1/2 second.
candidate/
Unlike anyone else here, I have spent a significant amount of time working with electroporation, for cellular modification. I worked with a researcher who created a high-throughput 40-chamber system, to maximize electroporation production. But the sad truth is you only get tiny volumes of modified cells, and you have to sort those for efficacy. This is not a way to create massive quantities of anything, such as a custom vaccine replacement.
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Thanks,
- Win
If you can deliver immune cells to someone suffering a pathogen attack, they have a survival advantage and could self-replicate to sufficient numbers inside the body.
CH
For the modified cells to self-replicate, don't you have to change their DNA, and not merely inject something foreign, as electroporation does? If you want to inject new RNA / DNA, fine, but that means you'd have to know exactly what to change in the DNA, and how to execute it, etc. Hardly a panacea.
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Thanks,
- Win
Oh. This injects RNA. Sorry, as you were. I've been trying to wish DNA therapy into being for too long :)
I thought if anyone had hands on experience with the technology it would be you. Dunno exactly the significance of the work you cited but apparently the requirements for DNA vaccine delivery require less precision.
Takis Biotech, the inventor of the new subject DNA COVID-19 vaccine, have successfully developed and used their electroporation for quite some time now, mostly for cancer vaccines. You can read about it here:
No, RNA, DNA, same rules. But you do need to know the new changes, which is almost impossibly hard. If you do know *what* to do, there are lots of ways to do it.
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Thanks,
- Win
you. Dunno exactly the significance of the work you cited but apparently the requirements for DNA vaccine delivery require less precision.
successfully developed and used their electroporation for quite some time now, mostly for cancer vaccines. You can read about it here:
an honorable mention.
subsidiary at Merck closed down, and they still do contract work for them as well as many other big players.
If they know what to do, that's the important part. But I agree, electroporation is routine, and scarcely worth a mention. If that's the technique they prefer, fine, but it's not the technique we should be praising, it's that they know what RNA, DNA etc, they intend to use with it. If they can properly modify a cell's DNA, it can grow more.
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Thanks,
- Win
Fred, for reasons laid out in this article, I'm not optimistic we'll ever have a vaccine.
The problem, the HPV vaccine's creator relates, is that the lung's surface is effectively outside the human body, inaccessible to our primary immune system. And when you try to create a hyper-vigilant immune response, you can easily make the immune gods angry and have them destroy a lot of healthy lung. Nasty.
Cheers, James Arthur
That problem would apply equally to natural immunity, no?
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 http://electrooptical.net http://hobbs-eo.com
Surely lung tissue has viral defenses, otherwise every cold would kill us.
People do usually recover from covid and create protective antibodies that show up in blood samples. Flu and pneumonia vaccines are given as shots.
What's the status of using plasma from recovered people to help infected people? Gotta look that up.
The fact that there has been no corona vaccine so far might be from lack of trying.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Ahem, there's been a hell of a lot of trying.
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Thanks,
- Win
True, but that's a problem Nature has solved us, and which so far is outside the scope of 'things we've successfully made vaccines for', AIUI.
Cheers, James
Yes.
A superficial search indicates that our NIH has been struggling to develop a coronavirus vaccine for at least the last seven years.
Early in this cycle, Jan. 20th IIRC, Dr. Fauci said publicly that NIH had a coronavirus vaccine in progress.
Cheers, James Arthur
ote:
e in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing chemicals, drugs, or DNA to be introduced into the cell.
use a viral vector. Developing immune response to the viral vector could b e a real problem, especially when a booster is required.
e-candidate/
zer/12146616
Not sure what he's talking about, so either something is being lost in tran slation or he has a screw loose. Given Australia's history of vaccine devel opment, it's probably the latter. There are quite a few vaccines that work by immunizing the human cells most commonly found to be entry points of the viral infection. Polio uses the i ntestine for example. The animal test being performed on the corona virus c andidates are directly challenging the lung tissues of the animals, using s ome kind of ventilator arrangement where they can precisely control the vir al mega-dose. This was done in the case of the macaques anyway. The DNA vac cine test on the mice was probably the same. The mice are a good animal mod el because they're famously susceptible to developing a raging pneumonia th at kills them dead very, very quickly. So it's quite the test and quite an accomplishment to save them, not just from death, but from even showing sym ptoms. I don't think durability of immunity is an issue, in the developed w orld anyway, since people can just a get booster periodically. People using the viral vector type vaccine, like the over-hyped Oxford vaccine, most li kely will not be eligible for a booster. People using the DNA vaccines admi nistered via electroporlation will not have that limitation.
ue in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase th e permeability of the cell membrane, allowing chemicals, drugs, or DNA to b e introduced into the cell.
t use a viral vector. Developing immune response to the viral vector could be a real problem, especially when a booster is required.
ne-candidate/
razer/12146616
There's no scientific problem here. The problem is social. The developed wo rld didn't want to invest a bunch of money into a vaccine to protect third world Asian people. Now that the idiots are learning the hard way that what goes around comes around, there will be a vaccine in record time.
Not true, they gave up when the virus went away.
ue in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase th e permeability of the cell membrane, allowing chemicals, drugs, or DNA to b e introduced into the cell.
t use a viral vector. Developing immune response to the viral vector could be a real problem, especially when a booster is required.
ne-candidate/
razer/12146616
Also worth noting, the leading antiviral, remdesivir, was developed using m ercy funding grants from U.S. government. A for profit pharmaceutical, Gile ad, couldn't afford the loss with an expensive development cost and virtual ly zero profits from a drug needed in only the poorest African countries. N ow that it might be useful in the west, just look at the money being poured into it, probably more in the last month than the entire development lifec ycle to date.
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