
Ebola whole virus vaccine shown effective, safe in primates - alexcasalboni
http://news.wisc.edu/23601
======
nickysielicki
This is the same guy that caused a fluster when he made a super dangerous
modified H5N1, to the point that the government asked him not to publish. Of
course, he did do it eventually.

Pretty much the definition of being a badass, he makes extremely dangerous
biological weapons and cures deadly disease.

That's my school! Good time to be a badger... Also a bad time I suppose, it's
5:00am and I'm still up? Homework? What?

~~~
ptaipale
Being a "badass" is something I don't exactly look for when I try to think of
who should develop substances that are injected to my blood circulation.

~~~
nkozyra
Yeah, I'm looking for a rock star full stack virologist.

~~~
dmd
So, you mean Pardis Sabeti [0], Ebola researcher and lead singer of Thousand
Days [1] [2].

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardis_Sabeti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardis_Sabeti)

[1]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahibadi/sets/72157605798942179](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahibadi/sets/72157605798942179)

[2] [http://www.thousanddays.com/](http://www.thousanddays.com/)

~~~
IgorPartola
Well goddamn, you found one.

~~~
dmd
There's a recent profile on her in the New Yorker.

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-
wars](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars)

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mellavora
Let's hope that it makes its way through human trials. Even better, let's hope
that their development platform generalizes. Lots of known nasties out there
which we can dramatically reduce with vaccines.

~~~
tim333
Yeah it's a clever technique - knocking out the gene for one protein and then
producing that protein elsewhere.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _knocking out the gene for one protein and then producing that protein
> elsewhere_

Why does this work?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
If I understand correctly, the hard part safetywise is not making the vaccine,
handling it and giving it to the monkeys. It's the fact that you then have to
give the monkeys real Ebola to see if the vaccine worked. So the hard part is
handling real Ebola and monkeys infected with it.

What these guys have done is broken that real Ebola into two pieces, where one
piece is only in the monkeys. So even in the worst case scenario that a monkey
infects a human with "real" Ebola when they are testing the vaccine
efficiency, the "real" Ebola is now unable to replicate itself in the human
body. It's very clever.

Edit: so I think the answer by k_sze is wrong, but I'm not sure. Is there an
immunologist in the room?

~~~
maxerickson
The abstract makes it clear that the vaccine is the thing missing the protein:

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/25/science.a...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/25/science.aaa4919.full)

 _Previously, we showed that a whole EBOV vaccine based on a replication-
defective EBOV (EBOVΔVP30) protects immunized mice and guinea pigs against
lethal challenge with rodent-adapted EBOV._

edit: to be clear, k_sze is not wrong, they tested the vaccine against active
virus.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Ok, good that you clarified. I was wrong.

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kokey
Reading about these tests on monkeys in a biosafety level 4 facility reminds
me of The Andromeda Strain. I remember watching the movie for the first time a
few years ago and saw how the strain killed a monkey. I was thinking to myself
perhaps killing a monkey for a movie was acceptable back in 1971. It turns out
they just made it pass out with CO2, under the supervision of the SPCA. It was
also one of those strange movies where I could remember the story line but had
no visual memory of it, until I remembered I read the book on a commute many
years before.

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jetskindo
Good news, however the human trial will take years. By the time it is complete
many will have died already.

In other words this is good news for the next outbreak

~~~
IgorPartola
Are you volunteering to be a subject in an expedited trial?

~~~
tim333
If I was working in an area with Elboa and some risk of getting infected I'd
be happy enough to try the vaccine. The risks of this vaccine seem minimal
compared to the danger of the disease.

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Xeoncross
So wait, the delete one of the eight genes that virus uses to replicate
itself, inject that into the monkey, and then give the monkey the vaccine and
watch the monkey's body kill the Ebola?

If the Ebola can't reproduce, how do we know that the vaccine had anything to
do with the Ebola dying? It's not like it can live forever crippled and unable
to reproduce.

~~~
maxerickson
They manufactured the vaccine virus by developing 2 things: a strain of Ebola
that lacked the gene to express a certain protein and a cell line that did
express that protein. They infect cells from that line with their defective
strain of Ebola, and since the cells are providing the protein, it is able to
reproduce.

They isolate that vaccine virus from those cells, expose it to hydrogen
peroxide, and then expose the monkeys to it. Lacking the protein, the virus is
unable to reproduce.

After that exposure, when the monkeys have had time to develop immunity, they
are exposed to active Ebola virus. So the earlier exposure to the vaccine
virus provides them with immunity against the active virus.

~~~
Xeoncross
Thank you, that explains the steps much better.

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maxerickson
The report:

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/25/science.a...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/25/science.aaa4919.full)

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probablyfiction
Do you hear that? It's the sound of a thousand conspiracy theories being
launched.

