Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g8rz7yedo

by dabinat • 5 months ago

193 126 5 months ago

botusaurus• 5 months ago

why do they call it a vaccine, its nothing like that...

there's probably a reason evolution didnt put the immune system on permanent "amber alert" as they call it in the article

Angostura• 5 months ago

The research team in the US does not think the immune system should be permanently dialled up and think such a vaccine should be used to compliment rather than replace current vaccines

kojacklives• 5 months ago

True though there is the theory that it was unnecessary for the immune system to regulate itself in some ways because we were full of parasites.

Larrikin• 5 months ago

Are you wildly speculating or do you have a source with research backing up your claim evolution got it perfectly right?

I personally look forward to every innovation that potentially improves our baseline.

aaa_aaa• 5 months ago

I bet my money on the immune system any day.

dekhn4• 5 months ago

They didn't claim evolution got it perfectly right.

They speculated that immune systems evolved to avoid being continuously on alert. And that's exactly right- our immune systems have an extremely complicated system for detecting foreign invaders that is tightly regulated. And a failure to regulate that is often associated with autoimmune disorders, which remain very poorly understood.

I've studied biology from the perspective of engineering better drugs for decades now and I can say with confidence that I simply don't understand how the immune system works, and I don't think anybody else really does either (compared to, say, the heart, or many biological systems like protein production). We have identified many players, and observed a great deal of actions, and have speculative models for many of the underlying processes, but we don't really have an "understanding" of the immune system. I skimmed this paper and frankly, it has a very long way to go before people are convinced to try this in human clinical trials.

I look forward to innovations, but to a first order approximation: evolution found model parameters that exceed the best human science and engineering.

amelius2• 5 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert

Amber alert means something different than the author thinks ...

RupertSalt7• 5 months ago

Perhaps "Defcon 02" would be better understood?

kazinator3• 5 months ago

They wanted "red alert".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Alert

This is just an idiom for denoting a high alert state.

resoluteteeth• 5 months ago

Notice that that Wikipedia page links to a disambiguation page which links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIKINI_state which may be more familiar to people in the UK than the meaning you are thinking of

renewiltord3• 5 months ago

One of the things I do worry about is glasses. Is there a reason why we correct vision? There's probably a reason evolution made some of us see the world in a blur. Likewise with therapy - maybe killing yourself is like cell apoptosis. Many body cells are supposed to choose to die when they no longer function well. It's a good thing. That's often the problem with scientists: "They were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should".

Until we find out why nature made it so some of us kill ourselves maybe we shouldn't fuck with it? Remember Chesterton's Fence.

thomquaid2• 5 months ago

This isnt a vaccine against suicide.

lanyard-textile2• 5 months ago

Really...?? :)

"Sorry son, you can't get these glasses. It's for the betterment of humanity."

krapp3• 5 months ago

You're making the mistake of thinking of "nature" and "evolution" as intelligent, reasoning systems, and that every evolutionary adaptation exists for a purpose. Evolution doesn't do things for "reasons," things just happen.

Remember that cephalopod brains are donut shaped and their digestive tracts go right through the middle and if they eat something too big they'll have an anyeurism. Pandas and koalas evolved special diets that serve no evolutionary purpose and both would be extinct if humans didn't find them cute. Sloths have to climb down from trees to take a shit. Female hyenas give birth through a pseudopenis that often ruptures and kils them. Horses can't vomit and if they swallow something toxic, their stomach ruptures. Also their hooves and ankles are extremely weak and not well designed to support their weight. Numerous species like the fiddler crab and peacock have evolved sexual displays that are actively harmful to their survival.

And as for humans, our spines are not well adapted for walking upright, our retinas are wired backwards, and we still have a useless appendix and wisdom teeth. The recurrent laryngeal nerve has an unnecessarily long and complex route branching off the vagus and travelling around the aorta before running back up to the larynx.

Evolution is not smart. Evolution isn't even stupid. It isn't trying to keep you alive and it isn't even capable of caring if you die. Yes we should absolutely fuck with it, because we don't want to live in a world where we still die of sepsis and parasites and plagues because "we don't want to mess with evolution."

akersten• 5 months ago

I had to upvote this just because it's such an incredible take, it really made my day even if I think it's complete horseradish

boothby• 5 months ago

Poe's law and all, but the first two responses to this are missing some sarcasm that looks pretty overwrought to me.

dekhn4• 5 months ago

The reason we correct vision is for safety and convenience. My guess is that we have a distribution of vision capabilities due to the inability of complex biological systems to ensure that the precise geometry of the cornea and lens is subject to statistical variations that can't be controlled. There are probably also tradeoffs associated with near and far vision.

Now, you could have restated this in a better way IMHO. I'd put it like this: are there any evolutionary advantages to having worse-than-average near or far vision? For example, we can imagine that people who had extremely good long range vision would be more successful in hunting, and perhaps- this is where I'm speculating heavily- having poor long vision is compensated by having better detail vision for fine tool work. However, what I've learned after many years is that attempting to perceive the true nature of the evolutionary fitness function is challenging.

As for your bit about suicide: please be a lot more thoughtful in speculating about suicide.

nradov2• 5 months ago

Although we don't have a lot of hard evidence, there is reason to suspect that the high rate of poor vision in modern young people is more environmental than an evolutionary flaw. We spend too much time indoors staring at nearby objects under dim artificial light. People who spend most of their time outdoors are less likely to need vision correction, although there could be trade-offs later in life as the damage caused by natural UV light accumulates.

giarc• 5 months ago

The effect lasted for around three months in animal experiments.

It would just be temporary, but there is likely trade offs.

mattmaroon2• 5 months ago

Isn’t Amber alert a missing child? Wouldn’t you say like DEFCON three or something?

RupertSalt7• 5 months ago

This article is from the UK, so it's more like: evacuate the children, Keep Calm and Carry On, but fight them on the beaches.

hkt• 5 months ago

I'll be fascinated to see how this plays out for people with autoimmune conditions - generalised heightening of the immune system feels like it would be dangerous for those people. Are any immunologists lurking who might be able to speculate?

senkora• 5 months ago

It seems like it could also be quite dangerous for those with food allergies.

kazinator3• 5 months ago

But then it is mentioned that the treatment "also seemed to reduce the response to house dust mite allergens".

The treatment also supposedly activates macrophages in the lungs (and thus not elsewhere). Only some small particles and vapor droplets from foods go into the lungs.

PaulKeeble• 5 months ago

Its often completely normal to use healthy controls in a trial like this, healthy people not getting ill is your target audience and the long term stage 3 will be against healthy people. So many drugs are not tested against obvious groups that might produce a poor result to make the findings as strong as possible but it means in a lot of cases chronically ill people are making judgements on no data at all.

reliablereason• 5 months ago

It is given as a nasal spray and leaves white blood cells in our lungs – called macrophages – on "amber alert" and ready to jump into action no matter what infection tries to get in.

Right and if that is such a good thing why are those macrophages not always on alert. I smell longterm cancer or similar.

amelius2• 5 months ago

Or antimicrobial resistance.

LeoPanthera• 5 months ago

If only Stanford University had asked you first!

bob0013• 5 months ago

If only you had read the article.

There may also be consequences to dialling up the immune system beyond its normal state – raising questions of immune disorders.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the work was undeniably "exciting" but cautioned "we have to ensure that keeping the body on 'high alert' doesn't lead to friendly fire, where a hyper-ready immune system accidentally triggers unwelcome side effects".
The research team in the US does not think the immune system should be permanently dialled up and think such a vaccine should be used to compliment rather than replace current vaccines.

bob0013• 5 months ago

I smell longterm cancer or similar.

Or simply autoimmune reactions which can be devastating.

nrds• 5 months ago

Indeed, I wonder whether the vaccine content matters at all in current vaccines. We could probably just inject people with the adjuvants and get the same result.

alphazard2• 5 months ago

Yeah this is more likely than cancer, and is a potential side effect of anything that stimulates the immune system, including real antigen-carrying vaccines.

b65e8bee43c2ed02• 5 months ago

there are many, many things our bodies could do (or not do) to greatly improve our health at no cost whatsoever.

bob0013• 5 months ago

That we think have no cost. The massive failure rate of drug trials and some famous cases of issues discovered only after wide scale deployment indicates we're not that great at knowing ahead of time.

The body is like legacy spaghetti code written by hundreds of teams of outsourced engineers. It mostly works. Just never remove any commented out lines or it may break.

glial• 5 months ago

While possible, there are also many bodily processes that are finely tuned through eons of evolution, and destabilizing pressure leads to disorder. Sometimes it's difficult to know which are which (or at least I don't know).

nradov2• 5 months ago

Which things?

shiroiuma4• 5 months ago

This reminds me of an episode in Star Trek: TNG's 2nd season, where Pulaski and Data visit a colony doing genetic engineering experiments on kids which created a super-virus.

gdevenyi• 5 months ago

Autoimmune disorders

marcosdumay• 5 months ago

The most likely, because it consumes energy and respiratory diseases take almost nobody from the gene pool.

What has no relation at all to what possible side effects this could have.

bsder• 5 months ago

It would be nice to have a dosage that lasts a couple of days for when you're flying or attending a conference.

That way, your immune system wouldn't be on continuous high alert, but you could give it an "Oy, wake up. Incoming pathogens." blast.

jalapenos4• 5 months ago

This. I don't think humans have evolved a brain - immune system pathway to prime the macrophage pump after you book a Ryanair.

nkmnz2• 5 months ago

We shouldn't call it a vaccine when, in fact, it's just a line of cocaine for macrophages.

arghwhat3• 5 months ago

We also shouldn't call it "vegan leather" when it is in fact just plastic.

Naming departs from technical accuracy when adopted by the masses, as they retrofit their common understanding. Wouldn't be too surprised if "vaccine" ends up covering other strong defense-boosters.

poszlem• 5 months ago

Yes, but in this case the name is likely to actually reduce the adoption not increase it.

wvbdmp• 5 months ago

I mean the word “vaccine” literally specifically references cow pox, so it’s already broadened. No reason not to go up another level.

jjtheblunt2• 5 months ago

"vegan leather" when it is in fact just plastic.

https://knowingfabric.com/mushroom-leather-mycelium-sustaina...

is pretty neat

Bluescreenbuddy• 5 months ago

Mushroom leather says hello

nkmnz2• 5 months ago

Wouldn't be too surprised, either - but I still think there's merit in using words in a more precise manner than the marketing department would like to do.

stouset• 5 months ago

I found it funny because the opposite direction, people accused Tesla of naming “autopilot” misleadingly, because it gave them the impression of fully unattended self-driving.

In aviation, autopilot features were until recently (and still for GA pilots) essentially just cruise control: maintain this speed and heading, maintain this climb rate and heading, maintain this bank angle, etc.

lokar• 5 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_leather

jalapenos4• 5 months ago

PhageRage(tm)

bobomonkey• 5 months ago

Even if it worked perfectly, I would be worried that an unexercised immune system would turn on me.

scotty79• 5 months ago

Macrophages are trash eaters. Keeping them active might even be beneficial for other reasons.

rolph• 5 months ago

this isnt exactly a vaccine its more like prophylactic immunoinduction.

"toll like receptors"

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7173040/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135964462...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40364-022-00436-7

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll-like_receptor

midnightdiesel• 5 months ago

I wonder how long before this gets defunded too?

ottah• 5 months ago

This sounds like a great way to create an autoimmune disease.

Spivak• 5 months ago

That's a good chunk of immunotherapy, still super useful.

CyanLite2• 5 months ago

Isn't this how "I Am Legend" started?

adam_gyroscope• 5 months ago

My favorite twitter account was “in mice” which just posted stories like this and added “in mice”. Which applies here.

alephnerd2• 5 months ago

It may come as a shock, but mice are some of the closest species to Humans genetically speaking [0] with 95-99% similarity depending on the gene in question, and a large portion of diseases are shared by both mice and humans [1].

One of the geneticists who worked on identifying this is also on HN and tried to explain this [2] but HNers think they are smarter than actual leaders in the fields of genomics.

[0] https://www.mpg.de/10973923/why-do-scientists-investigate-mi...

[1] https://www.mpg.de/8949327/structural-variants-crispr-cas

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41260651

bradleyjg• 5 months ago

All that may well be true. But one doesn’t have to be a leader in the field of genomics to have read decades of articles breathlessly proclaiming medical breakthroughs (in mice) and then not ever seeing them hit the market (in humans.)

Or in other words the meat of the critique is not aimed at genomics, but rather in science marketing.

strken• 5 months ago

I'm not sure why the snark is necessary. Nobody is suggesting that mice are a terrible animal model or trying to tell researchers how to do their jobs, they're just frustrated by pop science coverage that leaves crucial information out of the headline and over-hypes early research. At least the BBC article doesn't bury the lede.

RupertSalt7• 5 months ago

A top-10 list indicates 6 primates, cat, dog, and cow. While there has been a lot of testing done on primates and dogs, they are much more sympathetic for animal-rights groups, and the general public, when protesting vivisection, breeding, and confinement.

Anatomically and behaviorally, primates would still be the top choices there. And many, many disciplines experiment on animals, where results don't come at the genetic level.

Good, the genetics match closely. But mice (or rats: see the idiom "lab rat") are also considered vermin, prolific breeders, fit in your hand, short life-cycle, and easily obtained. So they join fruit flies in the lab experiments.

Interestingly, pigs are used in many types of medicine while not enjoying that genetic similarity. In the 1950s and 60s, your insulin and thyroid meds were often derived from pigs.

jalapenos4• 5 months ago

So you could have kids with a mouse then if you got drunk enough and were un-endowed enough?

Because you typed a number that looks close to 100%. So must be basically the same.

pvtmert• 5 months ago

I would be interested to see such thing on my Twitter/X feed, is it @_in_mice? It seems to be a bit stale. Would you like to share? Thanks!

dragonwriter• 5 months ago

Actually, I think a more to-the-point addition for any headline of the form “X could do Y” is “, but probably not”.

It’s a relative of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.

cdcluv• 5 months ago

Despite a lot of education, I don’t know the immune system well, because it’s complex.

However, it’s my understanding that when the body is in a state of readiness due to its infection (from a cold, flu, etc.) the effects of this (such as fever, inflammation, and general immune response) could potentially could guard the body against other types of infections that the body perhaps doesn’t have resistance to. So while I think a universal vaccine sounds great, I’d try it, and I’d want others I know that have dust allergies, etc. to try it, and because we’ve had friends and family die from the flu, I’m still a little suspicious that this could open the door for other types of disease we’ve not been having to deal with.

linhns• 5 months ago

Nice to hear but I'm afraid this will end up like generic solutions, good but not fully effective for single diseases.

grigio• 5 months ago

is this a new series?

Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus

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