NWR: How mRNA vaccines happened so fast

V

VLM

VLM
This is a nice interview with John Mascola*, the head of the NIAID Vaccine Research Center. He and colleagues (Barney Graham, especially) have been working on and pushing these new vaccine technologies since at least the aftermath of the H1N1 out break a decade ago. In addition to working to make the mRNA technology viable, they and their teams designed the antigen for the Moderna vaccine.

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www.wired.com

* I worked on collaborations with the VRC back when I was doing vaccine research.
 
Thanks for the link. Accepting one of these in my deltoid in the near future. Breathtaking accomplishment.
 
Breathtaking, indeed. A monumental scientific accomplishment.

Here is another nice article that is sort of like an oral history of the vaccine. Drs. Mascola and Graham developed a mRNA MERS vaccine but never tested it.

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www.newyorker.com

As a side note, I think that mRNA vaccines deserve a Nobel but so many people had a hand in making this platform viable I think it would be hard for the committee to single anyone out or find a small enough group.
 
originally posted by VLM:
Breathtaking, indeed. A monumental scientific accomplishment.

Here is another nice article that is sort of like an oral history of the vaccine. Drs. Mascola and Graham developed a mRNA MERS vaccine but never tested it.

Loading…

www.newyorker.com

As a side note, I think that mRNA vaccines deserve a Nobel but so many people had a hand in making this platform viable I think it would be hard for the committee to single anyone out or find a small enough group.
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A further tangent. How many Nobel Laureates were either undeserving, not so bright, dumb lucky, politically savvy, or some combination? It’s a somewhat rhetorical question but your comment brought some to mind for me. The committee is good at finding someone to reward. Might here too, whether deserving or not.
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by VLM:
Breathtaking, indeed. A monumental scientific accomplishment.

Here is another nice article that is sort of like an oral history of the vaccine. Drs. Mascola and Graham developed a mRNA MERS vaccine but never tested it.

Loading…

www.newyorker.com

As a side note, I think that mRNA vaccines deserve a Nobel but so many people had a hand in making this platform viable I think it would be hard for the committee to single anyone out or find a small enough group.
Click to expand...

A further tangent. How many Nobel Laureates were either undeserving, not so bright, dumb lucky, politically savvy, or some combination? It’s a somewhat rhetorical question but your comment brought some to mind for me. The committee is good at finding someone to reward. Might here too, whether deserving or not.
Click to expand...

Really? Literature and Peace have made some notable blunders. But I always thought the sciences had a better basis for judgment.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by VLM:
Breathtaking, indeed. A monumental scientific accomplishment.

Here is another nice article that is sort of like an oral history of the vaccine. Drs. Mascola and Graham developed a mRNA MERS vaccine but never tested it.

Loading…

www.newyorker.com

As a side note, I think that mRNA vaccines deserve a Nobel but so many people had a hand in making this platform viable I think it would be hard for the committee to single anyone out or find a small enough group.
Click to expand...

A further tangent. How many Nobel Laureates were either undeserving, not so bright, dumb lucky, politically savvy, or some combination? It’s a somewhat rhetorical question but your comment brought some to mind for me. The committee is good at finding someone to reward. Might here too, whether deserving or not.
Click to expand...

Really? Literature and Peace have made some notable blunders. But I always thought the sciences had a better basis for judgment.
Click to expand...

Lol. Maybe in some ways. The achievements are usually pretty notable in the sciences. Who gets credit is a different story.
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by VLM:
Breathtaking, indeed. A monumental scientific accomplishment.

Here is another nice article that is sort of like an oral history of the vaccine. Drs. Mascola and Graham developed a mRNA MERS vaccine but never tested it.

Loading…

www.newyorker.com

As a side note, I think that mRNA vaccines deserve a Nobel but so many people had a hand in making this platform viable I think it would be hard for the committee to single anyone out or find a small enough group.
Click to expand...

A further tangent. How many Nobel Laureates were either undeserving, not so bright, dumb lucky, politically savvy, or some combination? It’s a somewhat rhetorical question but your comment brought some to mind for me. The committee is good at finding someone to reward. Might here too, whether deserving or not.
Click to expand...

Really? Literature and Peace have made some notable blunders. But I always thought the sciences had a better basis for judgment.
Click to expand...

Lol. Maybe in some ways. The achievements are usually pretty notable in the sciences. Who gets credit is a different story.
Click to expand...

Yeah, all the heat around Bob Gallo and the Nobel awarded for HIV (I think there was even a lawsuit).

Anyway, there isn't one for Statistics so I don't have any footing for judgment, I just know they are sometimes controversial because the kind of person who really wants one generally has sociopathic tendencies (not uncommon in high level research).
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Kerry Mullis, of PCR fame, comes to mind, Jayson.

Mark Lipton
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But one should be specific what category a winner is in. I don't think Mullis was undeserving and most certainly he was not politically savvy. But he also came to my mind right away, in the class of "dumb lucky" (that this category exists is what keeps me going...).

Overall there are relatively few winners in medicine or chemistry that can not look back on a long career of major accomplishments, and the few getting the prize relatively early in their career pretty much always were clearly involved in a major discovery. Whether others were not equally or more deserving is usually where the contention comes in.
 
originally posted by VLM:
... because the kind of person who really wants one generally has sociopathic tendencies (not uncommon in high level research).
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Nor for political office as well or religious high office. So everything boils down to politics, doesn't it?
 
originally posted by georg lauer:
originally posted by MLipton:
Kerry Mullis, of PCR fame, comes to mind, Jayson.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

But one should be specific what category a winner is in. I don't think Mullis was undeserving and most certainly he was not politically savvy. But he also came to my mind right away, in the class of "dumb lucky" (that this category exists is what keeps me going...).

Overall there are relatively few winners in medicine or chemistry that can not look back on a long career of major accomplishments, and the few getting the prize relatively early in their career pretty much always were clearly involved in a major discovery. Whether others were not equally or more deserving is usually where the contention comes in.
Click to expand...

If it wasn't for "dumb luck" I'm not sure what my career would have looked like.
 
Considering that science is always a group project and all achievements stand on previous ones, the Nobels just seem like an arbitrary choice for someone who happens to be at the top in a patriarchal and capitalist society. And who likes patriarchy and capitalism? Well, far too many people. But they suck and so do Nobels.

btw, who runs this place these days? I tried to change my name here but politburo never replied to my message. How do I get in touch with the current politburo?
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
btw, who runs this place these days? I tried to change my name here but politburo never replied to my message. How do I get in touch with the current politburo?
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Like every administration that needs to replace profit with other kinds of motivation, the Politburo is a stickler for proper procedure, but it should work if you send them a scan of your new passport showing the name change.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
btw, who runs this place these days? I tried to change my name here but politburo never replied to my message. How do I get in touch with the current politburo?
Click to expand...

Like every administration that needs to replace profit with other kinds of motivation, the Politburo is a stickler for proper procedure, but it should work if you send them a scan of your new passport showing the name change.
Click to expand...

He’ll always be Otto to us.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
btw, who runs this place these days? I tried to change my name here but politburo never replied to my message. How do I get in touch with the current politburo?
Click to expand...
It's a bureaucracy: gotta make any request at least three times before maybe they... deny it. I think the message thing at top of page works.
 
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