Flu Is Relentless. Crispr Might Be Able to Shut It Down (wired.com) 44
Scientists at Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity are working on a Crispr-based treatment -- delivered as a nasal spray or injection -- that could stop influenza infections by targeting the virus's RNA and disrupting its ability to replicate inside human cells.
The approach uses the Cas13 enzyme, a lesser-known cousin of the DNA-cutting Cas9, which can be engineered to seek out conserved regions of influenza's genetic code that are found in virtually all flu strains and are crucial to the virus's survival. The delivery mechanism would use lipid nanoparticles to ferry two molecular instructions to flu-infected cells in the respiratory tract: an mRNA that tells cells to produce Cas13 and a guide RNA that directs the enzyme to specific parts of the influenza virus's code.
Cas13 then cuts the viral RNA and effectively stops the infection at the genetic level, Sharon Lewin, the infectious diseases physician leading the project, told Wired. Early safety testing at Harvard's Wyss Institute used a "lung on a chip" model to examine whether human cells producing Cas13 could fight off flu strains including H1N1 and H3N2. The institute's founding director Donald Ingber says the studies showed no off-target effects.
The approach uses the Cas13 enzyme, a lesser-known cousin of the DNA-cutting Cas9, which can be engineered to seek out conserved regions of influenza's genetic code that are found in virtually all flu strains and are crucial to the virus's survival. The delivery mechanism would use lipid nanoparticles to ferry two molecular instructions to flu-infected cells in the respiratory tract: an mRNA that tells cells to produce Cas13 and a guide RNA that directs the enzyme to specific parts of the influenza virus's code.
Cas13 then cuts the viral RNA and effectively stops the infection at the genetic level, Sharon Lewin, the infectious diseases physician leading the project, told Wired. Early safety testing at Harvard's Wyss Institute used a "lung on a chip" model to examine whether human cells producing Cas13 could fight off flu strains including H1N1 and H3N2. The institute's founding director Donald Ingber says the studies showed no off-target effects.
good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck getting that approved in the US any time soon.
I'm ready to leave the US for better and cheaper healthcare alone.
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Actually, the current administration only objects to long proven medical treatments.
New techniques that they can take credit for will of course be happily accepted and funded.
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those were the old bad biden contracts, the new bigger more beautiful contracts are coming soon to save the day and make US even greater.
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Good luck getting that approved in the US any time soon.
From the changes I've seen happen, they seem to be aiming to approve just about anything.
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Except vor vaccines, obviously. But this story is not about a vaccine.
mRNA (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment subjects are stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Glad to see this kind of innovation can continue elsewhere in the world.
Criticism valid and invalid (Score:4, Interesting)
“I like the idea of it, but it’s putting a foreign protein from a bacteria into someone’s body,” he says. “So will the body make an immune response against it?”
Yes, in the current implementation, it most likely will. This is not only because the protein is of bacterial origin, but also because it did not originate from the patient's own proteome and was therefore never subject to immune tolerance. What will first happen is a process that eventually affects nearly every protein in a cell, whether they're good or bad: the Cas13 is broken down into fragments and displayed on the cell's surface. This mechanism is known as the MHC-I antigen presentation system. Once these Cas13 fragments are displayed, the immune system recognizes the cell as compromised or foreign and destroys it.
However, there are solutions to this. For example, one could introduce a molecule like CD47 (among others) alongside the Cas13, which acts like a Jedi mind trick on the immune system. These molecules essentially signal the immune system to ignore any foreign antigens displayed on that cell's surface.
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"Heaton also cautions against “off-target effects,” the chance that a Crispr treatment will inadvertently go after your body’s own RNA as well as an invading virus."
Uh, no it won't on a scale that matters. As for will it destroy the RNA of the infected cell and cause it to die? Probably yes (note: there's a way to prevent that), which may be a good thing.
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Re:Criticism valid and invalid (Score:4, Funny)
and nothing can possibly go wrong with being infected with a virus that is known to kill millions of people every year?
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Indeed! Eating from the Tree of Knowledge to interfere with God's desire for us to suffer disease and death is a clear usurping of His authority
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People keep laughing at how the Japanese are processing other people's mythologies and faith systems into something ridiculous and unrecognisable to the people in question.
When it comes to Christianity, all the fanfiction people think is Christianity is easily as hilarious :D.
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By that logic, God didn't intend you to communicate across thousands of miles either. Yet you do it.
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I don't want cas13 in my body (Score:2, Interesting)
What other RNA could be shredded? This could be dangerous
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You already have Cas13 in your body, some of the bacteria in your gut have it.
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I don't want my cells producing it. It's fine in my gut.
Re:I don't want cas13 in my body (Score:5, Interesting)
Only infected cells receive the CAS13-generating RNA. Once the infected cells are dead, no more CAS13 will be produced by your cells.
You will always have CAS13-producing bacteria in your gut biome. If there were any serious side effects associated with a low-to-moderate presence of CAS13, we would already know about them.
It is possible that CAS13 can cause problems in areas outside of the gut, if it is present at higher-than-normal levels in those tissues. The comment about "no off-target effects" suggests that the scientists were monitoring for this possibility and found nothing.
So far, this is looking really good. But the FDA has a long evaluation process for a reason, and we may see problems during the drug trials. Cautious optimism is appropriate.
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"Only infected cells receive the CAS13-generating RNA."
That's probably not true. I haven't read the paper (is there one?), but I would be surprised, actually shocked, if they had a reliable/efficient way to ensure both high transfection efficiency and that only infected cells receive the cas13-generating RNA. It's far more likely that they targeted the cell type that gets infected with influenza. That would be the more efficient and currently best method. The way the treatment works is that the cas13 has to be triggered by the presence of viral RNA. Without vir
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Humans are pretty delicate compared to some life forms, but overall we're pretty robust. The probability of anyone dissolving or turning into a blob of jelly after spraying this up one's nose is not significant. Probably not zero, but close to it. It's also unlikely to cause widespread en-jelly-fication.
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The probability of anyone dissolving or turning into a blob of jelly after spraying this up one's nose is not significant.
This is not the right metric to use. Cost vs. benefit analysis has to include damage caused by the treatment (i.e., wrong cells taking up RNA and consequently getting killed by the immune system) vs. damage caused by the infection.
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Well, how often do you plan on getting the flu?
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Only infected cells receive the CAS13-generating RNA.
How would that work? The delivery mechanism (liquid nanoparticle) is not capable of discriminating.
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You are perfectly welcome to suffer the full effects of the flu and maybe even die from it. Have fun.
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This is medical research done by actual scientists. I tend to believe them.
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Same here. But rational people with a real view on things are rare. And the Dunning-Kruger effect is just as real as the Stockhokm-Syndrome.
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What do you want? They made a flu medication (not vaccine) that finally has a reasonable chance of working. All of that is also in the nice article, no "analysis" needed.
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You realize movie scripts are something that someone who smoked an acid laced joint scribbled on a piece of paper, right?
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How illiterate are you? This is NOT a vaccine.
I am not really interested in that (Score:2)
When you notice, it may be too late. Now, better vaccines, I could get behind. And please start working on a vaccine for the common cold as well, I would be willing to shell out several $100 for one that works.