If Immunity Project (YC W14) succeeds, they'll offer AIDS vaccine for free

http://www.fastcompany.com/3025372/if-the-immunity-project-crowdfunds-this-synthetic-aids-vaccine-theyll-offer-it-free-to-every

by ph0rque • 13 years ago

169 40 13 years ago

fastcompany.com

1angryhacker• 13 years ago

and if the vaccine is successful too

herbig• 13 years ago

"Immunity Project is a non-profit initiative dedicated to developing an HIV vaccine."

linker3000• 13 years ago

.... Big pharma ...

3327• 13 years ago

Why not, the amount of money and resources spent on a single virus thread is beyond our imagination. If they succeed and like all startups they have thin odds and perhaps even thinner because of being in biotech - there are two massive implications.

1- The obvious an Aids vaccine 2- Disrupting the pharmaceutical empire on a global scale equal to perhaps a renaissance in the business of medicine and pharmaceuticals. They get a $50 from me.

acconrad• 13 years ago

I'm just really glad that YC is investing time and money into ground-breaking startups that go beyond popular SV consumer web services.

chrisBob• 13 years ago

I am skeptical about a crowd founded Bio-tech company. If they are legit then it shouldn't be hard to get some NIH funding (you know, the crowd sourcing platform that I pay into already). Government funded research may not be a perfect system, but it works pretty well and is peer reviewed.

danabramov• 13 years ago

From their FAQ (at the page bottom):

### If this vaccine candidate is so promising, why can’t you get enough funds for it from government and foundation grants?

We’ve spoken to many parties and some seem interested, but do not believe this is the best route for us at this time. The landscape is highly political, and most bodies are focused on creating a neutralizing antibody vaccine. Anytime a product completely novel and innovative enters this space, it is extremely difficult to obtain early adopter. Given the extreme toll HIV/AIDs is taking on many communities around the world, we must move swiftly. We are confident these groups will come around down the road, but we do not want to wait.

return0• 13 years ago

Wow that is quite a statement. If this project succeeds, people should really reconsider the whole way science funding works nowadays.

dnautics2• 13 years ago

this is exactly the sentiment that I have for my (biomedical) nonprofit.

softbuilder• 13 years ago

but do not believe this is the best route for us at this time.

It might not be the best route because while it will provide individual immunity, HIV transmission can and likely will still happen. The worst case seems to be everyone gets HIV but everyone is a controller.

(Btw, the FAQ seems to have changed since that quote: http://www.immunityproject.org/faq)

cjfont• 13 years ago

It's hard to believe a group such as the Gates Foundation would think this way given the stakes.

dekhn2• 13 years ago

I don't understand the meaning of "Anytime a product completely novel and innovative enters this space, it is extremely difficult to obtain early adopter"

Are they saying they can't get access to patients for clinical trials? Sick people probably wouldn't like being called "early adopters".

jseliger• 13 years ago

If they are legit then it shouldn't be hard to get some NIH funding (you know, the crowd sourcing platform that I pay into already

I'm a grant writer who works for nonprofit and public agencies, and I actually just finished working on an NIH proposal.

Getting NIH funding is very hard. First you have to find a program that fits the purpose. Then you have to get the application instructions. Application instructions look something like this: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-13-383.html , and those are just the instructions. [1] Assuming you can actually write a coherent narrative (this isn't easy either), or hire someone to write one, you have to gather the numerous supporting documents.

Assuming you have a complete and technically correct application, you then have to a) wait, b) compete with everyone else submitting applications, and c) hope the reviewers understand what you just submitted. It can easily take a year or more from the time you think, "Gee, I should submit an application" to signing a contract with a program officer.

It may be worth doing but alternative approaches make sense too.

[1] Application instructions are so hard to read that people on HN routinely don't recognize them as opportunities to get money. There are a bundle of related Federal programs call Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) that I used to submit to HN because potential YC applicants might be interested in SBIRs. Eventually I stopped because they rarely got any upvotes.

derefr• 13 years ago

Hmm. I see an opportunity here for something that combines taxpayer pay-in with crowdfunding-style pay-out. Imagine if the NIH set some percentage of their budget aside for matching "donations" to crowdfunded science projects, at an extreme ratio, like 100:1 -- so $30k of demonstrated public interest would be matched with $3MM of NIH funding.

That seems, to me, to be within the spirit of representative democracy: for every 1 person who knows enough about X to put their money on the line, there's probably 100 people who would if they had X explained to them.

Fomite• 13 years ago

NIH paylines are, for many areas, in the single digits. There are a hell of a lot of good, "legit" ideas that aren't getting funded.

obsession• 13 years ago

Where can I donate?

liuhenry• 13 years ago

https://pledge.immunityproject.org/

trillium• 13 years ago

This is an ambitious goal. Finding an AIDS vaccine isn't easy.

I still vividly recall my Professor who has many years experiences with viruses saying, "I don't think there will ever be an AIDS vaccine."

I think and hope he's wrong, but it is surely no easy task.

guipsp• 13 years ago

From what I read, they already have one developed.

wazoox• 13 years ago

There have been some vaccines developed already, some even reached phase 1 to 3 human testing, and one even reached actual use.

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/hivaids/research/vaccines/Pa...

dekhn2• 13 years ago

Genentech dumped billions into developed AIDSVAX. It never worked for them well enough to market, but VaxGen took the IP and has shown interesting results - but still far from production ready.

run4_too• 13 years ago

This could be the most important thing that YC ever does...

dnautics2• 13 years ago

good luck guys! I tried crowdfunding for biomedical research (preclinical) and I learned a lot about crowdfunding in the process - will be restarting later this year, I hope to learn from your success. With some knowledge about the AIDS vaccine field (had many colleagues in that space in grad school, attended many talks) I think your project is really worthy and a fresh approach. I also volunteer weekly for an AIDS-related nonprofit, so this is a personal issue for me, I have seen clients of mine pass away of AIDS. I'll definitely be chipping in myself.

ThePhysicist2• 13 years ago

This is an exciting project, but as a scientist I think that the data they present to support their rather bold claims is pretty thin, so far. If they want me to invest in their startup through crowdfunding, they should at least be able to answer the following questions first:

-What exactly do they mean when they say that animal studies have been successful? Have they just conducted a proof-of-concept experiment or do they have a working vaccine for mice? If so, how effective is it (1 %, 10 % or 100 %)?

-How mature is the delivery process they intend to use? In their FAQ they mention the use of microspheres and state that "in a petri dish we have been able to induce dendritic cells to take up the microspheres through a process called phagocytosis". Again this sounds like a proof-of-concept experiment, so how mature is this technology?

-Why are there no peer-reviewed publications about their work so far? On their website they state that they're "awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal". Which journal did they submit their work to and why can't they publish a preprint of their article? Did they publish some theory papers about the work they did between 2011 and 2013?

If you want my money, please show me the data first :)

bdcs• 13 years ago

I agree with your dissatisfaction with the dearth of data. Unfortunately in bio(chem) fields, pre-prints are rare. Usually theory papers are too.

ThePhysicist2• 13 years ago

Well in physics it used to be like this, with most journals denying the authors the right to publish a pre-print because it would "spoil" the publication in the journal. Some interdisciplinary journals like Science and Nature still enforce this (harmful) policy but many others were already forced to open up by the scientific community, which really accelerated the dissemination of important results a lot. After all, with most journals it takes between six to twelve months to get something published, by then most results are "yesterday's news" already ;)

DonGateley• 13 years ago

If it's promising, even with long shot odds, you've gotta wonder why Gates isn't all over it.

sneak• 13 years ago

AIDS kills 5,000 per day.

Hunger kills 80,000 per day.

One of these we already know how to cure.

thkim• 13 years ago

I don't get it, what does this stats have to do with YC? Are you trying to say that disproportionate amount of resource is being invested in AIDS over preventing hunger on the aggregate level, and that it is wrong?

kamaal• 13 years ago

This isn't X or Y, this is X and Y.

Plus, to be really frank. HIV has broader consequences. If it ever mutates to spread through air or water, like common cold viruses. Then we are staring at an extinction level event.

The risks are far more higher.

atgm• 13 years ago

Would it really be an extinction-level event? I've read in many places that the life expectancy of a person with HIV on retroviral therapy is pretty much the same as it would be without HIV nowadays.

procrastinatus• 13 years ago

I'm sorry. I think the idea of private funding for research is interesting, but this really seems like a scam.

1. Zero people on the team or among the advisors have any experience doing research in molecular biology or virology. Check for yourself: http://www.immunityproject.org/ ("Meet the Team") They have an anesthesiologist, a bioinformatics guy, oncology researcher, epidemiologist (who studied HIV, but mostly from a community medicine perspective - e.g. things like gels and microbicides), 4 marketing/biz people, a media strategist, a general pediatrician, and another marketing person.

2. They have zero publications and no references to even preliminary data. Anyone can say they have "very successful mouse data." If these guys are actually scientists, why don't they talk about their science - their site is 100% marketing jargon.

3. By not going through the NIH, this group is not required to release any information about their technology to the public.

4. It's not trivial to do HIV research. If you are working with the virus, you are required to work in a bio-safety level 3 unit. Do they have approval for this? Is there any reason to think that the FDA will approve their trials?

5. What is this mysterious "final experiment" they need to do before starting the FDA approval process? (https://pledge.immunityproject.org/the-free-hiv-aids-vaccine).

It really seems like these guys are just trying to make money from the suffering of others. I find the use of stock images of poor children to be exploitative. Perhaps the NIH is not funding them for a reason. Who would fund someone before they've shown any evidence whatsoever that their technique works.

Okay, I'm off to go fundraising for my Malaria Vaccine Initiative with my fantastic preliminary animal model data from my lead marketing anesthesiologist. If the NIH won't fund me before I have data (I just need to do that one first^H^H^H last experiment), maybe random people on the internet who don't know anything about science will.

If Immunity Project (YC W14) succeeds, they'll offer AIDS vaccine for free

Related Stories