India’s DNA Covid vaccine is a world first – more are coming
nature.com
nature.com
edit: in action: https://youtu.be/MGvSWtuu4z4?t=86
> Jet injectors were used for mass vaccination, and as an alternative to needle syringes for diabetics to inject insulin. However, the World Health Organization no longer recommends jet injectors for vaccination due to risks of disease transmission.[1] Similar devices are used in other industries to inject grease or other fluid.
I always thought it was a purely fantastical creation for cinema for a satisfying "psht" sound to let you know it worked.
a) Easier handling and stability (DNA is just inherently more stable than RNA)
b) Potentially easier to manufacture if you make an un-encapsulated plasmid vaccine (though I have no idea how that effects effectiveness)
c) Higher payoff per material?? I assume that you can get more protein created per ng of genetic material.
Does anyone know if DNA vaccines generate protein over longer timescales than mRNA? I assume that once the plasmid is picked up in the nucleus it becomes pretty stable until the cell itself dies - mRNA should be cleaned up relatively more quickly?
"... But with any health advancement comes potential risk. Gennaro says that with a DNA vaccine, there is always a risk it can cause a permanent change to the cell’s natural DNA sequence.
“Usually, there are ways in which DNA vaccines are made that try to minimize this risk, but it’s a potential risk,” she says. “Instead, if you inject mRNA, it cannot get integrated into the genetic material of a cell. It is also ready to be translated into protein.” "
From: https://www.verywellhealth.com/rna-vs-dna-vaccine-5082285
Does a DNA vaccine have properties that change how far it can travel? Or any known mechanisms that will prevent a possible DNA alteration happening in the sperm or egg cells where it might land?
Aside, maybe its just the Fridays but hypospray[1] anyone?
Although I imagine the damage is done. In 5 years somebody is going to post a shitty jpeg with this brand name as proof for.... Things.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/arizona-executions-business-healt...
This is wrong. It is administered with an injection, just not a needle.
Edit: Also just speculating, for this specific vaccine is looks like jet injection is actually preferred. The requirement to place the injection under the skin versus into the muscle seems like it has a tighter tolerances that would be more difficult to achieve with needle injection.
Eh, sort of. Subcutaneous (under the skin) injections are pretty hard to screw up. You can train someone to administer them in 10 minutes.
So, yeah, if we find a way to do without nurses, or teach properly the thing to everyone, OK...
I doubt that. A vaccine ultimately needs to be administrated. Just wait for antivaxers to hear 'DNA' and go wild.
The West will have plenty of mRNA stocks. Russia and China seem uninvested in the technology, according to the list in the article. It took the current crisis to win acceptance for mRNA vaccines and (hopefully) such a crisis will not repeat for many years. So with few to push it and a scary name, this tech is unlikely to win acceptance this time around.
Sure the already anti-vaccination crowd will have more reasons to be peeved and more talking points to scream about. But would it mean new people would turn against vaccines because they hear "DNA"?
It seems to me like the big divide in the general population is over people who are open to their conceptions of nature be challenged and corrected (this whole pandemic has been a mini science course for a lot of people: exponential growth, conditional probability, mRNAs, to name a few) and those who just are not. Any other pre-existing opinion/ideology ("I just don't do vaccines") is probably unaffected by technical details.
There was an opening for new tech to win acceptance and mRNA won the race, I doubt there's room for DNA vaccines this time. Maybe if the tech could be used for some other disease.
The kind of people who would balk at a DNA vaccine would probably also reject other types of vaccine, so the underlying technology is not that important to that aspect.
Back to the issue, even poor states have more considerations than price.
First, they want effective vaccines. That means they need to be approved/adopted by some influential states, since poor states don't have widely trusted FDAs.
Second, even poor states have antivax (we can blame whatsapp and facebook for this). The people in charge of imports must want to make sure the vaccine is accepted, which points us at the same direction (they want to be able to say 'even big state like X uses this vaccine!' and avoid 'scary' new tech).
The West has mRNA and won't want to have even more antivax due to scary name. Russia/China seem uninterested in the tech. That leaves us with India, which is a large enough market for the manufacturer (Zydus Cadila) to make profit, but alas is not wealthy or influential enough to win worldwide acceptance by itself.
Summary: I don't think new tech can be pushed via COVAX alone when there are alternatives, even if it wins on price (which is far from assured).
I'm no antivaxer. But given that there are alternatives like mRNA, where including RNA into human DNA is impossible due to missing reverse transcriptase mechanisms: Why should I take the risk of incorporating DNA into DNA, which is possible and frequently occurs with other viruses and gene therapies? Where are the arguments that at least hint at the safety of DNA vaccines, because I see none?
DON'T GET "IT" (SINGULAR) he says, "as it allows the 5G waves to control your brain".