|
Scenario: The Fake BioTerror control Paradigm for a 4th Industrial technocratic slave state
Part 6 - Vaccines as a weapon? Bioscience disaster scenario?
By Capt Wardrobe Nov 2020 - UPDATED MAY 2021
"...advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may
transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."
Rebuilding Americas defenses - The Project for the New American Century
|
|
Disease - population management
|
2003 report: The creation of a bacteriophage (Pathogenic virus) called Phi X
Scientists create a virus that reproduces
Posted 11/13/2003 10:22 PM
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
It is the stuff of science fiction and bioethical debates: The creation of artificial life. Up until now, it's largely been just that.
But an important technical bridge towards the creation of such life was crossed Thursday when genomics pioneer Craig Venter announced that his research group created an artificial virus based on a real one in just two weeks' time.
When researchers created a synthetic genome (genetic map) of the virus and implanted it into a cell, the virus became "biologically active," meaning it went to work reproducing itself.
Venter cautioned that the creation of artificial human or animal life is a long way off because the synthetic bacteriophage — the virus that was created — is a much simpler life form. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria.
The project was funded in part by the Department of Energy, which hopes to create microbes that would capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, produce hydrogen or clean the environment.
But the questions ethicists have raised about such work are numerous: Should we be playing God? Does the potential for good that new life forms may have outweigh the harm they could do?
Arthur Caplan, who heads the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, says yes. This technology "is impressive. It's powerful and it should be treated with humility and caution," Caplan says, "But we should do it."
A genome is made up of DNA "letters," or base pairs, that combine to "spell" an individual's chromosomes. The human genome project was completed in April.
This summer, researchers at Venter's Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives bought commercially available strands of DNA and, using a new technology, coaxed them together to form a duplicate of the genome of a bacteriophage called phi X.
"It's a very important technical advance," says Gerald Rubin, a molecular geneticist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "You can envision the day when one could sit down at a computer, design a genome and then build it. We're still inventing the tools to make that happen, and this is an important one."
Venter notes the synthetic bacteriophage has 5,000 base pairs in its genome. The human genome has 3 billion, so similar work in human form probably won't happen in this decade, he says.
To date, the largest genome that was synthesized was the 7,500-base-pair polio virus. But that was only semi-functional and took three years to complete.
The researchers chose to put the new technology into the public domain for all scientists to use. It will appear in the next few weeks on the Web site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The technology raises safety issues, says David Magnus of Stanford's Center for Biomedical Ethics. Even putting it in the public domain is "a double-edged sword," he says. That presumes that allowing everyone access will keep the good guys ahead of the bad guys. "It's a gamble. ... It's a bet that everyone has a stake in," he says.
Mosquitos released in 50's experiments
Testing via Mosquito Vector in Punta Gorda, Florida
A report from The New England Journal of Medicine reveals that one of the first outbreaks of chronic fatigue syndrome was in Punta Gorda, Florida, back in 1957.(10) It was a strange coincidence that a week before these people came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, there was a huge influx of mosquitoes.
The National Institutes of Health claimed that the mosquitoes came from a forest fire 30 miles away. The truth is that those mosquitoes were infected in Canada by Dr Guilford B. Reed at Queen’s University. They were bred in Belleville, Ontario, and taken down to Punta Gorda and released there.
Within a week, the first five cases ever of chronic fatigue syndrome were reported to the local clinic in Punta Gorda. The cases kept coming until finally 450 people were ill with the disease.
Testing via Mosquito Vector in Ontario
The Government of Canada had established the Dominion Parasite Laboratory in Belleville, Ontario, where it raised 100 million mosquitoes a month. These were shipped to Queen’s University and certain other facilities to be infected with this crystalline disease agent The mosquitoes were then let loose in certain communities in the middle of the night, so that the researchers could determine how many people would become ill with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, which was the first disease to show.
One of the communities they tested it on was the St Lawrence Seaway valley, all the way from Kingston to Cornwall, in 1984. They let out hundreds of millions of infected mosquitoes. Over 700 people in the next four or five weeks developed myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome.
Mosquitos released on repeat experiment from 50's - Gates behind it.
The British company Oxitec released a cloud of hundreds of millions of genetically modified mosquitoes to study how to control their reproduction and thus stop the spread of dengue, Zika, malaria, etc.
As reported by Axios , the company, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , released the mosquitoes a week ago from the Florida Keys.
In a statement, Oxitec explained that this experiment seeks to study ways to stop the reproduction of Aedes aegypti , the main transmitters of potentially fatal diseases.
Why are Oxitec mosquitoes different? According to the company , the males in their insect cloud have a modified gene, called OX5034, that restricts the survival of the females they mate with. Thus, mosquitoes will not grow large enough to bite humans (only females consume blood; males feed on nectar).
Oxitec noted that this species only represents 4% of the mosquito population in Florida, but it is the most disease-transmitting species.
The startup has already released millions of modified insects around the world, including in Brazil and the Cayman Islands.
|
CROPS IN SECRET LOCATIONS USE GM DRUG THAT LEFT SIX CRITICALLY ILL notopharmaceuticalexperiments on IndyMediaUk Independent scientists have raised the alarm after media reports ommitted to mention that drugs, which left six people critically ill after a trial, are genetically modified and are being used in crops planted in secret locations across the UK. Drug Trial Catastrophe & Safety of Secretly Tested Pharm Crops A monoclonal antibody drug tested in a clinical trial made all six healthy volunteers violently ill, yet transgenic crop plants with similar drugs are being tested in secret locations and the unsuspecting public are being exposed without their knowledge or consent. Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members' website. |
|
Drug trial reactions attest to the deadly nature of MAB drugs
The London drug trial that left six healthy volunteers dangerously ill has raised awkward questions on the science and ethics involved in all stages of drug research and development ("Drug trial catastrophe – collapse of science and ethics", this series). The drug, code named TGN1412, is a genetically engineered humanized monoclonal antibody (MAB) aimed at treating leukaemia and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Hundreds of MAB drugs are under development, 18 of which have already been approved by the US FDA, with warnings posted on each and every one of them ("Warnings over FDA approved monoclonal antibody drugs", this series).
The violent reactions of all six human volunteers injected with TGN1412 serves as a graphic demonstration on how deadly such drugs can be.
In the aftershock of the episode, bioethicists and others have called for tighter regulation of human drug trials and a more cautious protocol. However, no one has raised the alarm over the distinct possibility that the general public might be exposed without informed consent to transgenic crops producing such drugs.
Secret pharm crops with MABs
Currently, the MAB drugs approved have mainly been prepared from cell cultures. The cost to the patients would be at least $20 000 to $50 000 per year; the colon cancer drug Erbitux costs $17 000 per month [1]. So, only the wealthy could benefit from such drugs, if at all. Producing the drugs in transgenic farm animals or in crop plants, therefore, promises to greatly reduce the cost of MAB drugs. And plans are afoot to do just that, with reckless disregard for the safety of the general public.
Laboratory mice have already been modified to produce human antibodies and there are efforts to create farm animals producing human antibodies [2]. Human monoclonal antibodies have been produced at relatively high levels in chicken eggs [3]. And humanized MABs have been produced using the yeast Pichia pastoris, ‘glycoengineered' to express human patterns of glycosylation (carbohydrate chains on proteins) to avoid immunological problems arising from non-human glycosylation [4].
Plant-based production of recombinant antibodies has been discussed extensively. A review published in 2003 [5] reported that six plant-derived antibodies have been developed as human therapeutics. The drug, Avicidin, developed by NeoRx and Monsanto, had some anticancer effect on colon cancer; but it caused severe diarrhoea and was withdrawn. A plant-derived antibody CaroRx produced in tobacco claims to reduce tooth decay by preventing adhesion of the bacterium Streptococcus mutans. A MAB targeting the cancer-antigen CEA was produced in tobacco, pea, rice and wheat. A humanized MAB recognizing herpes simples virus 2 was produced in soybean. Tobacco plants were transformed with a viral vector to produce antibodies targeting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Finally, a MAB produced in tobacco targeted human chorionic gonadotropin, and was intended for use in contraception, pregnancy detection and therapy of tumours [6]. Plants have been transformed to produce prophylactic antibodies against rabies and other disease conditions [7].
We have drawn attention to the hazards of producing genetically modified vaccines and therapeutic antibodies. The main threat is the genetic pollution of major food crops resulting in food that is toxic [8]. Humanized MABs structured to attack herpes virus or regulate the human immune system were to be produced by transgenic strains of the green alga Chlamydomonas in large plastic tubes near a beach in Hawaii Chlamydomonas is a common soil microbe so the nature and location of the production facility would risk spreading the transgenic strains and the human genes also to soil microbes [9].
Molecular pharming (producing pharmaceuticals in transgenic crops) is turning into a new battlefront in the struggle of the global civil society against transgenic crops. Too many governments of industrialised countries appear to be prepared to allow biotech corporations to contaminate our food supply with un- prescribed and dangerous drugs [10].
The precise MABs in pharm crops deemed confidential business information
There have been at least 29 field tests of transgenic crops known to be producing antibodies, but the actual genes have been deemed confidential business information (CBI). The crops modified include maize and soybean; and the companies testing the transgenic crops are Prodigene, Monsanto and Agracetus, among others. The field releases were in Hawaii, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Minnesota, Puerto Rico, Texas and other states [1]. Other crops and MABs may have been tested, but designated CBI, as are the actual locations of such tests, and no effort has been made to notify bystanders and neighbours that are likely to be directly exposed to the drugs. People may be exposed to MABs from transgenic crops by pollen, dust debris from leaves, stems and flowers, and from polluted surface and groundwater. Once the MAB genes escape to fertilize neighbouring crops, they will persist within the contaminated crops, by virtue of simple Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in elementary population genetics!
There is no case for using crop plants in the open field to produce these drugs, as they could easily be produced in plant cell culture under fully contained conditions.
The location and nature of current and previous field trials should be made public now before any more damage is done, and all further field trials should be banned.
|
Tobacco control report reveals familiar names
Follow the money: How the billions of dollars that flow from smokers in poor nations to companies in rich nations greatly exceed funding for global tobacco control and what might be done about it
The challenges faced by WHO/TFI in gathering data on global funding for national tobacco control programmes is paralleled by challenges the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Secretariat faced in gathering data on funding for global tobacco control, such as the development assistance for health (DAH) provided by governmental or private organisations or individuals. After attempting to quantify this support in 2005, the WHO FCTC Secretariat concluded it was ‘impossible to provide a clear indication of the amounts of funding available.’29 Although parties to the FCTC are required to report whether they received or provided financial or other forms of assistance, they are not required to quantify this support.30
One of the most active supporters of global tobacco control, the Bloomberg Philanthropies, suggested in 2007 that $200 million was spent on international development aid for tobacco control.22 The basis for their estimate was not stated, but it may have included the annual budget for the functioning of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (now $6.5 million),31 the portion of the WHO budget for tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diets, physical activity and unsafe sex (the total of which is now $80 million) that is spent on tobacco control,32 and the estimated annual $62 million investment of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use.33 Since that estimate was made, a further $25 million annualised donation was announced in 2008 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,34 and WHO/TFI produced an estimate of $9.6 million spent on national tobacco control programmes in middle-income and low-income countries. Based on these available estimates, the total available for development assistance for tobacco control is likely no greater than $240 million.
Tobacco control report - Cynthia Callard - BMJ
MAB's - Astrazeneca - Eli lily - Regeneron
"
AstraZeneca on Tuesday announced its monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid-19 did not meet the primary goal of preventing symptoms in people who have been exposed to the coronavirus, denting hopes of a new therapeutic treatment for Covid-19 for unvaccinated people."
AstraZeneca’s AZD7442 was developed with support from the U.S. government. In March, the company announced that it had inked a deal with the government to supply up to half a million doses of AZD7442 for $205 million—subject to the drug receiving emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company said it is continuing to discuss its next steps with the U.S. government.
Key Background
While several effective vaccines have been developed to protect against Covid-19, effective drugs against the disease remain sparse. Similar monoclonal antibody treatments developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly have been authorized for use in the U.S., but supplies of the drugs remain limited. The development of therapeutics that prevent symptomatic Covid-19 is critical to ending the pandemic as vaccines are yet to be accessible to large swathes of the world’s population.
Phage Therapy
Phage Therapy
Synthetic phages with programmable specificity
Date: November 4, 2019 - Source:ETH Zurich
Summary:
Researchers are using synthetic biology to reprogram bacterial viruses -- commonly known as bacteriophages -- to expand their natural host range. This technology paves the way for the therapeutic use of standardized, synthetic bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections.
Bacteriophages ("phages" for short) are viruses that infect bacteria. Phages are highly host-specific and will typically only infect and kill an individual species or even subspecies of bacteria. Compared to conventional antibiotics, phages do not indiscriminately kill bacteria. Therefore when used as a therapeutic, phages do not cause collateral damage to beneficial "good" bacteria living in the gut. This ability to target only disease-causing bacteria has led to phages being seen as potential "magic bullets" in the fight against bacterial infections, especially against bacteria that have developed antibiotic resistance.
However, the high specificity of phages is also a disadvantage: Clinicians have to administer different combinations of phages to be sure the right phage is present to target a single bacterial infection. Not only does this approach limit the chances of phage therapy becoming a standardized treatment option, but also finding a phage, or combination of phages, for every infection becomes a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Until now, phages had to be first isolated from their natural environment, tested against the bacterial strain(s) in question, and -- most importantly -- have their genomes sequenced to ensure they are safe for use in humans.
Genetically modified phages
Under the direction of Samuel Kilcher, an "Ambizione" fellow funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, researchers from the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH) at ETH Zurich have genetically reprogrammed phages to produce synthetic phages that recognize and attack a broader range of bacterial strains beyond their natural host. The researchers reported their findings in the journal Cell Reports.
On the bottoms of phage tails are specialized receptor binding proteins that recognize specific receptors on the exposed cell walls of a target bacterium. "Using X-ray crystallography, we cracked the atomic structure of the first receptor binding protein from a Listeria phage, providing the structural blueprint for re-engineering our phages," says lead author Matthew Dunne.
Akin to building with Lego blocks, the researchers assembled new receptor binding proteins by fitting together protein components derived from different phages to provide different host specificities. Finally, the researchers genetically modified Listeria phages with their designer receptor binding proteins, resulting in phages that recognize and kill new strains of the target bacterium. Although these designer phages attack different new hosts, they all share the same genome, except for the gene encoding their receptor binding proteins.
Phage cocktail as a form of therapy
A mixture of such phage variants could now be used to treat patients. "We could cover a broad range of hosts by administering several synthetically produced phages in a single cocktail," Kilcher explains. The difference to a wild-type phage cocktail is that the synthetic ones could be developed, produced and adapted in a much more targeted fashion. Cultivating artificial phages in pure culture is neither expensive nor labor-intensive. "We can program them accordingly for almost every specific purpose," he adds.
Alongside therapeutic applications, the researchers could also use the synthetic phages as diagnostic markers of specific molecular structures, such as for detecting pathogenic strains among a mixed bacterial population.
A long road ahead
There are still many hurdles to overcome before therapies with genetically modified phages enter clinical practice. The present study is merely a proof-of-concept relating to Listeria as a model bacterium, which occurs in food and can cause severe infections in people with weak immune systems.
The researchers are now planning to create artificial phages to combat other pathogens that are often difficult to treat with conventional therapy as a result of antibiotic resistance. Examples include Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Enterococcus species. The methods for engineering such phages are yet to be developed. "Every phage and every host organism harbor particular challenges," emphasizes ETH Professor Martin Loessner, co-author of the study and director of the Laboratory of Food Microbiology at IFNH. However, he thinks it is just a matter of time before a workbench is also developed for such pathogens.
Much hope is invested in phage therapies. Genetically modified phages have already been used therapeutically in one case. A few months ago, American researchers reported in the journal Nature Medicine on a case in which a 15-year-old who suffers from cystic fibrosis was administered phages in order to heal a severe infection caused by mycobacteria. The treatment worked. But broad-based clinical trials are still needed before any phage therapies can be approved.
|
Passive inhaled mRNA vaccination for SARS-Cov-2
Wee Song Yeoa and Qin Xiang Ngb,?
Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer
Published online 2020 Nov 24. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110417
Dear Editor,
The world is currently facing an unprecedented outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans. At the time of writing, more than 38 million persons have been infected with the virus, with more than a million recorded COVID-related deaths [1]. Scientists are urgently trying to develop a safe and efficacious vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, which must also be produced in large quantities to protect vulnerable populations against SARS-CoV-2.
To achieve this, we propose the massive and passive immunization of the at-risk population via cohorting with individuals who have recently contracted SARS-CoV-2, but are deemed non-infectious albeit reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-positive. Testing RT-PCR positive would imply the continued spread of non-viable mRNA particles into the surroundings [2].
Multiple studies have noted that individuals who has had SARS-CoV-2 for more than 10 days were non-infectious, though they remained RT-PCR-positive [3], [4]. The above finding is in line with current US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance that “persons with mild to moderate COVID-19 remain infectious no longer than 10 days after symptom onset” and persons with “more severe to critical illness or severe immunocompromise likely remain infectious no longer than 20 days after symptom onset” [5].
Messenger RNA (mRNA) as a means for passive immunization has been extensively studied for years. Early studies since the 1990s showed that exogenous mRNA could direct protein expression in vivo, cementing mRNA as a promising drug platform technology [6], [7]. Several studies later demonstrated the utility of mRNA in vaccine development and conferring protection against cancers [8] and infectious diseases [9], [10]. Moreover, passive mRNA immunization also experiences fewer safety issues due to its non-integrative and transient nature [11], the latter of which contributes to better and/or easier control of protein expression.
The potential role of mRNA vaccination in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 is evidenced by ongoing COVID-19 Phase I vaccine trials conducted by several pharmaceutical companies, including Moderna Therapeutics’ mRNA-1273 vaccine [12], [13], which has yielding promising results. The feasibility of inhaled RNA for passive transfection has also been proven in a number of studies [14]. On a mechanistic level, the inhaled RNA may lead to passive synthesis of non-infectious spike proteins using cell transfection machinery, hence leading to immunization of the individual.
Though there are no conclusive or ongoing large scale clinical studies yet to prove the above hypothesis, we believe this proposal is worth exploring in our battle against COVID-19, given the significant number of already recovered individuals and the natural shedding of nonviable SARS-CoV-2 particles in the environment.
|
future scenarios - Vaccines that spread like a disease
Scientists are working on vaccines that spread like a disease. What could possibly go wrong?
By Filippa Lentzos, Guy Reeves | September 18, 2020
Self-spreading vaccines have some of their roots in efforts to reduce pest populations. Australian researchers described a virally spread immunocontraception, which hijacked the immune systems of infected animals—in this case a non-native mouse species in Australia—and prevented them from fertilizing offspring. The earliest self-spreading vaccine efforts targeted two highly lethal infectious diseases in the European rabbit population (myxoma virus and rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus). In 2001, Spanish researchers field-tested a vaccine in a wild rabbit population living on Isla del Aire, a small Spanish island just off Menorca. The vaccine spread to more than half the 300 rabbits on the island, and the trial was deemed a success.
In 2015, another team of researchers speculated on the development of a self-spreading vaccine for the Ebola virus that could be used on wild great apes like chimpanzees. Since then, scientists have come to see a wide array of animals—from wildlife such as bats, birds, and foxes to domesticated animals like dogs, pigs, and sheep—as amenable to self-spreading vaccines.
So far, researchers have not developed experimental self-spreading vaccines for humans; there is no clear evidence that anybody is actively working on the technology. Nuismer and Bull argue, rather, that self-spreading vaccines present a revolutionary approach to control emerging infectious diseases before they even spill over from animals into the human population.
Zoonotic spillover is certainly a pressing problem; alongside SARS-CoV-2, HIV, Ebola virus, and the Zika virus, there are over a thousand other new viruses with zoonotic potential that have been detected in wild animals over the last decade. Prevention is better than a cure, Nuismer and Bull say in a New Scientist article. In their Nature Ecology & Evolution article, they claim they are “poised to begin developing self-disseminating vaccines to target a wide range of human pathogens” in animals.
Outside of an experiment, scientists would face massive technical and practical hurdles in identifying the most appropriate targets for intervention and ensuring immunity is maintained in the wildlife populations. Despite these substantial challenges, the potential security implications of self-spreading vaccines are even more serious.
The principal security concern is that of dual-use. In essence, this means that the same research that is used to develop self-spreading vaccines to prevent disease, could also be used to deliberately cause harm. You could, for instance, engineer triggers into a virus that cause immune system failures in infected people or animals, a bit like HIV does naturally. Or you could create triggers in a virus that cause a harmful autoimmune response, where the body starts attacking its own healthy cells and tissues.
The bioweapon question. While researchers may intend to make self-spreading vaccines, others could repurpose their science and develop biological weapons. Such a self-spreading weapon may prove uncontrollable and irreversible.
We don’t have to dig very deep for a historical example of weaponized biology. As the apartheid-era South African biowarfare program shows, social, political, and scientific pressures can lead to the misuse of biological innovation.
Codenamed Project Coast, South Africa’s program was primarily focused on covert assassination weapons for use against individuals deemed a threat to the racist apartheid government. In addition to producing contraptions to inject poisons, Project Coast researchers developed techniques to lace sugar cubes with salmonella and cigarettes with Bacillus anthracis.
While there have been many biowarfare programs, including several that were far more elaborate and sophisticated, the South African program is particularly relevant in thinking through malicious uses of self-spreading vaccines. One of Project Coast’s research projects aimed at developing a human anti-fertility vaccine.
The idea took hold during a time of widespread concern over worldwide population explosion. Schalk Van Rensburg, who oversaw fertility-related work at a Project Coast laboratory, told South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a forum for examining the sordid history of the era and laying the foundation for future peace and tolerance, that he thought the project was in line with the World Health Organization’s attempts to curb rising global birth rates. He believed it could bring his lab international acclaim and funding. According to Van Rensburg, Wouter Basson, the director of the biowarfare program, said the military needed an anti-fertility vaccine so that female soldiers would not fall pregnant.
While some of the scientists involved in the project denied awareness of ulterior intentions or even that their fertility work was part of a military endeavor, Van Rensburg and Daniel Goosen, a lab director, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the real intention behind the project was to selectively administer the contraceptive in secret to unwitting Black South African women.
In the end, the anti-fertility vaccine was not produced before Project Coast was officially closed down in 1995, 12 years after it was initiated. An early version was tested in baboons, but never in humans. South Africa isn’t the only country to try and forcibly sterilize parts of its population. European countries, including Sweden and Switzerland, sterilized members of the Roma minority in the early half of the 20th century and some, like Slovakia, continued even beyond that. More recently, analysts have alleged that the Chinese government is sterilizing women in Xinjiang, a province with a large population of Uighur Muslims.
It doesn’t take a massive leap of the imagination to see how the aims of South Africa’s anti-fertility vaccine project would have benefited from research into self-spreading vaccines, particularly if you combine it with current developments in pharmacogenomics, drug development, and personalized medicine. Taken together, these strands of research could help enable ultra-targeted biological warfare.
An expanding potential for abuse. The Biological Weapons Convention, the treaty that bans biological weapons, is nearly 50 years old. Negotiated and agreed to in the depths of the Cold War, the convention suffers from outdated modes of operation. There are also significant compliance assessment challenges. The convention certainly didn’t stop South Africa from pursuing Project Coast in the early 1980s.
Self-spreading vaccine research is a small but growing field. At the moment, about 10 institutions are doing significant work in the area. These laboratories are primarily located in the United States, but some are in Europe and Australia, as well. As the field expands, so does the potential for abuse.
So far research has primarily been bankrolled by US government science and health funders like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Private organizations like the Gates Foundation and academic institutions have also financed projects. Recently, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), sometimes thought of as the US military’s research and development wing, has gotten involved in the research. The University of California, Davis, for example, is working on a DARPA administered project called Prediction of Spillover Potential and Interventional En Masse Animal Vaccination to Prevent Emerging Pathogen Threats in Current and Future Zones of US Military Operation. According to a pamphlet, the project is “creating the world’s first prototype of a self-disseminating vaccine designed to induce a high level of herd immunity (wildlife population level protection) against Lassa virus … and Ebola.”
Military investment in biological innovation for defensive or protective purposes is permissible under the Biological Weapons Convention, but it can still send the wrong signals. It could cause countries to doubt one another’s intentions and lead to tit-for-tat investment in potentially risky research, including in self-spreading vaccines. The result of research gone awry or biowarfare could be catastrophic for health and the environment.
At a time when the norm against chemical weapons is degrading, underscored most recently by the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok—a crime for which many European officials blame Russia—the international community simply can’t afford to have the same thing happen to the norm against the use of biological weapons. It would completely defy the spirit of the treaty if it seemed like states would even want to pursue high-risk dual use activities in biology.
Early, open, good-faith conversations about scientific aims and advances that cause particular dual-use concerns, as self-spreading vaccines do, are essential to exploring the broader stakes of certain technical trajectories. The University of California, Davis program is pursuing ways to incorporate an “off switch” to safely control the technology. And DARPA says any field experimentation related to the project would follow biosafety protocols. But these pledges won’t suffice. Our ambition must be to make a collective decision about the technical pathways we are willing, or not willing, to take as a society.
future scenarios - Self spreading Vaccines
screenshots by Cory Morningstar - Acknowledgement & thanks to her for flagging this:
"Self-Spreading Vaccines"
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security:
Technologies to Address - Global Catastrophic Biological Risks, October 09, 2018
"biosurveillance", "biological disruption", "bioterrorism events", "Global catastrophic biological risk" (GCBR), "bioengineering", "transformational surveillance technologies"
Introduction:
This report highlights 15 technologies or categories of technologies that, with further scientific attention and investment, as well as attention to accompanying legal, regulatory, ethical, policy, and operational issues, could help make the world better prepared and equipped to prevent future infectious disease outbreaks from becoming catastrophic events.
Infectious disease emergencies can arise with little notice and have serious detrimental and lasting effects on health and society. As a subset of infectious disease emergencies, global catastrophic biological risk (GCBR) is a special category of risk involving biological agents—whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory-engineered and escaped—that could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international organizations and the private sector to control. While rare, the risks of severe pandemics and GCB events are increasing because of factors like climate change, population growth and urbanization, and rapid affordable global travel. In addition, advances in biotechnology that enable easier and more targeted manipulation of biology increase the chances that microbes may be misused or will become the accidental cause of a pandemic. Yet, while biotechnology does pose some societal risk, investment in the technologies described in this report, and other technologies, is also an important component in helping to safeguard the world from a devastating biological event. When applied thoughtfully, technology can improve our ability to recognize and address emerging biological problems.
Excerpts:
"As a subset of infectious disease emergencies, global catastrophic biological risk (GCBR) is a special category of risk involving biological agents—whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory engineered and escaped—that could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international organizations and the private sector to control."
While rare, the risks of severe pandemics and GCB events are increasing because of factors like climate change, population growth and urbanization, and rapid affordable global travel. In addition, advances in biotechnology that enable easier and more targeted manipulation of biology increase the chances that microbes may be misused or will become the accidental cause of a pandemic.
Yet, while biotechnology does pose some societal risk, investment in the technologies described here, and others, is also an important component in helping to safeguard the world from a devastating biological event. When applied thoughtfully, technology can improve our ability to recognize and address emerging biological problems." [p. 3]
"Programs and Organizations Working on Technologies for Infectious Disease Prevention and Response Because the concept of global catastrophic biological risk is relatively new, this is the first analysis to focus on assessing technologies for the purpose of reducing GCBR [Global catastrophic biological risk]." [p. 9]
Self-Spreading Vaccines
"What is the technology? Self-spreading vaccines—also known as transmissible or self-propagating vaccines—are genetically engineered to move through populations in the same way as communicable diseases, but rather than causing disease, they confer protection. The vision is that a small number of individuals in the target population could be vaccinated, and the vaccine strain would then circulate in the population much like a pathogenic virus. These vaccines could dramatically increase vaccine coverage in human or animal populations without requiring each individual to be inoculated...
Although there are substantial technical challenges in genetically engineering viruses, synthetic biology tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 are likely to aid researchers in overcoming these hurdles in the coming years...
In the event of a grave public health threat, self-spreading vaccines could potentially be used to broadly inoculate human populations. Like the approach in animals, only a small number of vaccinated individuals would be required in order to confer protection to a larger susceptible population, thus eliminating the need for mass vaccination operations, including PODs." [p. 45]
"While self-spreading vaccines could help reduce illness and death in a severe pandemic, this approach comes with several big challenges. One important component of the current vaccination approach for humans is the informed consent process. In order to receive a vaccine, individuals (or their legal guardians) must be informed about the risks of vaccination by a healthcare provider and provide their consent before being vaccinated. Those who decline are not forced to receive a vaccine. In the case of self- spreading vaccines, the individuals directly vaccinated would have this option, but those to whom the vaccine subsequently spreads would not. Additionally, self-spreading vaccines would potentially infect individuals with contraindications, such as allergies, that could be life-threatening. The ethical and regulatory challenges surrounding informed consent and prevention and monitoring of adverse events would be critical challenges to implementing this approach even in an extreme event.
Finally, there is a not insignificant risk of the vaccine virus reverting to wild-type virulence, as has sometimes occurred with the oral polio vaccine—which is not intended to be fully virulent or transmissible, but which has reverted to become both neurovirulent and transmissible in rare instances. This is both a medical risk and a public perception risk; the possibility of vaccine- induced disease would be a major concern to the public. Modeling efforts suggest that making self-spreading vaccines weakly transmissible might reduce the risk of reversion to wild-type virulence by limiting the number of opportunities for the virus to evolve. However, weakly transmissible vaccines would have to be introduced to more people to obtain sufficient immunity in the target population." [p. 45 - 46]
|
Technology for self-spreading vaccines now available
September 28, 2020 - By Rowenna Hoskin | Science Editor
Scientists have created self-spreading vaccines which could be revolutionary for treating disease, preventing animal transmission.
With COVID-19 on the rampage, vaccinations are at the forefront of everyone’s minds. While scientists are working on a cure for COVID-19, the benefit of prevention of disease is obvious.
Many diseases – like Rabies, COVID-19, SARS and Ebola – originate in animals and are then passed onto human populations.
In the past, the only methods to reduce transmission between wildlife and humans was to reduce human contact with disease-harbouring species, or to cull the species.
There have been vaccination programs in the past, a classic example being Rabies: by vaccinating dogs and other carnivores, rabies was suppressed in those populations which reduced the risk of humans contracting rabies. This was a very successful program and virtually eliminated rabies in the US and Europe. Rabies still kills more than 55,000 people a year across Africa and Asia where the cost of vaccination projects are preventing a sufficient level of immunity.
The problem that arises with these programs, the reason why they are very expensive, is because of the rapid population turnover and large population sizes of species. This makes maintaining immunity within populations very difficult and expensive – fortunately another solution is now available.
Scientists have created vaccines that spread themselves; these self-spreading vaccines can be developed in two ways.
The convenient approach relies on applying the vaccine to the fur of the captured animals and releasing them back into the wild. When they return to their natural homes, the vaccine will spread as social grooming takes place. As the individuals groom each other they ingest the vaccine which magnifies the level of immunity that populations can reach. This process shows promise for reducing the threat of rabies transmitted from vampire bats.
The second approach is a bit more radical: it relies on inserting a small piece of the genome of the infectious disease agent into a benign virus that spreads through the animal population. As the transmissible vaccine spreads from animal to animal, it immunises them against the target infectious disease. Immunity will increase within the population and the threat to humans will be heavily reduced.
The technology to create self-disseminating vaccinations now exists and has already been taken to field trials. Currently experiments are focused on protecting wild rabbit populations from a viral haemorrhagic fever using this technology.
Scientists are now looking at developing prototypes for several human pathogens like Ebola and Lassa. This technology could be revolutionary in reducing the threat of disease that is transferred from animals to humans.
Another benefit to this technology is the fact that disease would be able to be controlled, meaning that extermination of wildlife species would no longer be necessary. Ecologically important disease reservoir species populations will be conserved which maintains a healthy interdependent environment.
There is still a lot of work left to do before this technology is widely implementable; field trials will be testing effectiveness and possible unexpected consequences of self-spreading vaccines.
Considering the money being spent on a cure for COVID-19, prevention is unarguably a better method than waiting until it is too late. Vaccines that prevent pathogen transmission to human populations from the start are certainly a better investment than their cures.
|
Hundreds if not thousands of women have reported that they have suffered irregular bleeding/clotting after receiving one of the mRNA Covid vaccines. Sadly hundreds of others have reported the loss of their unborn child. However we are now also seeing hundreds of testimonies made by women who are saying that they have lost their unborn child or suffered irregular bleeding/clotting after being in the company of others who have received one of the mRNA Covid vaccines.Daily Expose UK |
Cov19 Vaccine shedding
 |
Shedding? human to human transmission of cures? or bioweapon?
The reports began with an unvaccinated Instagram user sharing with her followers that after years of regular cycles she missed her menstrual cycle two months in a row. Shortly after she shared her experience, the woman began noticing mainstream news articles drawing a connection between menstrual issues and the covid vaccine.
After hypothesizing that women’s negative reaction to the experimental mRNA vaccines- even if they’re unvaccinated- may be due to shedding, many other women started sharing their testimonies.
The account went from 9,000 followers to 30,000 in less than 24 hours as she started sharing the testimonies.
|
One has to wonder if the reports of "shedding" "Gain of functionality experiments" "phage virulance" specifically linked to Sars Cov 2 & the prevalennce of future bioweapons scenarios, [above] - are in fact geo strategically constructed PSYOPS designed to prime humanity to act upon a new type of major attack. A New global 911.
Proposals for Harpa -
DARPA is the gold-standard for innovation and accountability. In 1958, President Eisenhower established DARPA to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security. Its transformational developments include the Internet, GPS navigation, night vision, robotic prostheses, and stealth technology. The DARPA model has been replicated in the intelligence, homeland security, bioterrorism, and energy fields. The U.S. spends more than $3.4T on healthcare annually. Remarkably, this results-driven framework does not yet exist for federal biomedical and health research. DARPA’s success proves there is an effective government model for translating foundational science to product.HARPA’s identical operating principles would advance federal scientific research “from bench to bedside”. High-impact investments would be made on a contract—not grant—basis. Every program would have performance milestones with strict accountability. Each program manager would serve a limited term. A flat, nimble structure would ensure efficiency. With an autonomous structure, it would be singularly focused on rapid translation of existing biomedical opportunities into patient-care capabilities.HARPA would exist within Health and Human Services (HHS), and would work synergistically with the NIH, FDA, CDC, and CMS. The HARPA ecosystem would include the commercial market; biotech and healthcare companies; venture capital and philanthropy; academic institutions; and government and regulatory agencies. Private sector partners and federal regulatory agencies would be integral to the program planning process from the outset, rather than brought in at the end.
|
Trump Says US Coronavirus Outbreak Worse Than Pearl Harbor, 9/11: 'Could've Stopped In China'
President Donald Trump again described the ongoing COVID-19 onslaught on the United States as worse than Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
He added to this hyperbole by declaring the pandemic that's infected 1.26 million Americans and led to the deaths of 74,000 others is “the worst attack we've ever had.”
“We went through the worst attack we've ever had in our country,” said Trump at the Oval Office Wednesday. "This (COVID-19) is really the worst attack we've ever had. This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center. There's never been an attack like this."
source
Operation Warp speed is the Total Information Awareness program 2.0
"In addition to deploying 62,000 military service members in direct support of fighting COVID-19 on frontlines across the globe, the Department of Defense is racing towards a vaccine," said Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper. "Through our research and development labs such as DARPA and the Defense Health Agency, and our massive logistical knowledge and capacity, we are committed to achieving the goal of Operation Warp Speed for the American people. I am confident that, as with any mission our military undertakes, we will adapt and overcome all obstacles in our path."
Elements of Operation Warp Speed
Operation Warp Speed is a public-private partnership to facilitate, at an unprecedented pace, the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 countermeasures, between components of HHS, including CDC, FDA, NIH, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); the Department of Defense; private firms; and other federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. It will coordinate existing HHS-wide efforts, including the NIH's ACTIV partnership for vaccine and therapeutic development, NIH's RADx initiative for diagnostic development, and work by BARDA
|
Homeland Security in the 21st Century - 2007 - Chapter 4—
Public Health A biological or chemical attack is one of the most feared events. Anthrax, smallpox, plague, and bird flu are potential weapons of mass destruction. Chemicals such as VX or sarin nerve gas are lethal and easy to disperse. Harder to acquire and use but equally as deadly are radiological materials for use in a dirty bomb.
How ready is our nation’s public health network to protect against and respond to these threats?
What successes have we achieved in promoting state, local, and private provider readiness? TOPOFF DRILLS The year is 2005. Doctors and nurses and other hospital staff scurry through the halls of hospitals in New Jersey and Connecticut trying to cope with a chemical weapons attack. Short of isolation rooms, ventilators, and beds, the staff does the best that it can to treat hundreds, even thousands, of casualties—victims of poison gas.
When computers freeze or hospital phone lines are jammed, staff members resort to their personal cell phones in the mad dash to diagnose and treat patients and keep good records essential for administration and insurance. What happened? Relax, for now. It was only a drill—one of many in a series of public health emergency exercises called “TOPOFF,” short for top officials exercise in which federal, state, local and private officials coordinate their common response.1
Since 2000, these TOPOFF emergency drills in cities around the country have taught us that we need to do more to prepare for any emergency involving public health. Quarantine wards, better communications systems, bed space, anti-viral drugs, and knowledge of the emergency plan all need improvement. All states have a public health laboratory that carries out disease research and educational programs. Many of these programs are performed at county health facilities. Actually, despite the cuts in the state public health network over the period 1960-2001, we have made notable achievements in modernizing our public health infrastructure. From 1960 to 2001, public health was a forgotten effort subject to numerous state budget cuts.
Perhaps as a result of September 11 and the anthrax attack, or perhaps a result of a renewed concern about flu and other outbreaks, we have modernized our detection, prevention, and response capacity—to some extent. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10, “Biodefense for the 21st Century,” establishes the framework for laws and programs.2
Homeland Security in the 21st Century - 2007
|
|
1970 - nothing to see here, move along
H.B. 15090 PART 5 RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION
Department of the Army
Printed for the use or the Committee on Appropriations SYNTHETIC BIOLOGICAL AGENTS There are two things about the biological agent field I would like to mention. One is the possibility of technological surprise. Molecular biology is a field that is advancing very rapidly and eminent biologists believe that within a period of 5 to 10 years it would be possible to produce a synthetic biological agent, an agent that does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired.
Mr. Sikes. Are we doing any work in that field? (The information follows:) The dramatic progress being made in the field of molecular biology led us to investigate the relevance of this field of science to biological warfare. A small group of experts considered this matter and provided the following observations: All biological agents up to the present time arc representatives of naturally occurring disease. and are thus known by scientists throughout the world. They are easily available to qualified scientists for research. either for offensive or defensive purposes. Within the next 5 to 10 years. it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. A research program to explore the feasibility of this could be completed in approximately 5 years at the total cost of $10 million It would be very difficult to establish such a program. Molecular biology is a relatively new science. There are not many highly competent scientists in the field, almost all are in university laboratories. and they are generally adequately supported from sources other than DOD. However, it was considered possible to initiate an adequate program through the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council (NAS--NRC). The matter was discussed with the NAS-NRC. and tentative plans were made to initiate the program. However. decreasing funds in CB. growing criticism of the CB. program, and our reluctance to involve the NAS NRC in such a controversial endeavor have led us to postpone it for the past 2 years. It is a highly controversial issue and there are many who believe such research should not be undertaken lest it lead to yet another method of massive killing of large populations. On the other hand, without the sure scientific knowledge that such a weapon is possible. and an understanding of the ways it could be done, there is little that can be done to devise defensive measures. |
|
DARPA
A U.S. defense agency that specializes in turning science fantasies into realities ...
"safety tests of mRNA vaccines have turned up adverse events, and it’s not clear how potent they’ll be. Moderna plans to begin safety testing in healthy volunteers next month."
StatNews
|
|
Scientists play LEGO!
This is from the Company developing new vaccines
"Welcome to Moderna. We believe mRNA is the “software of life."
|
DARPA’s gambles might have created the best hopes for stopping COVID-19
By Steve Usdin, Washington Editor | Mar 20, 2020 | 2:45 AM +03
Editor's note: Updated on Mar 26, 2020 at 1:28 AM +03
A U.S. defense agency that specializes in turning science fantasies into realities jump-started technologies and nurtured companies that are now at the forefront of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Defense Research Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken risks where others wouldn’t. Its pursuit of high-risk, high-reward technologies, combined with its mission-driven approach to managing projects is promising to pay off in the fight against COVID-19.
DARPA was behind the creation of DNA and RNA vaccines, funding early R&D by Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) at a time when the technologies were considered speculative by many scientists and investors.
The military R&D agency believed nucleic acid-base vaccines could be developed much faster than conventional technologies. Its funding, project management and vote of confidence helped de-risk the science and attract investments and partnerships.
NIH selected Moderna as its partner for COVID-19 vaccine development. This week, an RNA vaccine produced by Moderna became the first COVID-19 candidate vaccine to be administered in a Phase I trial.
Inovio is on track to start a Phase I trial of an DNA-based COVID-19 vaccine in early summer.
AbCellera Biologics Inc., one of the first companies out of the starting blocks in the race to discover antibody therapies for COVID-19, is using technology created in response to a DARPA challenge.
|
|
Another fast-responder, Vir Biotechnology Inc.(NASDAQ:VIR), is deploying antibody discovery technology that can be traced to a company that received part of its funding from DARPA.
DARPA achieves results by empowering its staff to intensively and flexibly manage projects, awarding milestone-driven contracts rather than grants, and by setting goals that defy conventional wisdom.
While the results of its work are on the frontlines for COVID-19, DARPA continues to set ambitious targets for future outbreaks, including a goal of routinely creating, manufacturing and distributing effective prophylactics within 60 days of a new viral pathogen being identified.
RNA and DNA vaccines
DARPA deserves at least part of the credit for the fact that it’s no longer an extraordinary idea to encode an antigen in DNA or RNA so the human body can create the protein, rather than injecting the antigen as part of a conventional vaccine.
When DARPA began pursuing nucleic acid vaccines in 2011, it was far from clear that they would work.
“It was something that was much too risky for groups like the NIH to fund.” Amy Jenkins, DARPA
“A lot of people said that would be great if it works, but we don't think it could work, there are too many things that can go wrong,” Amy Jenkins, a program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, told BioCentury. She said DARPA scientists concluded “there are scientific reasons why it may not work, but there are also scientific reasons why it may work, and that's absolutely the right place for DARPA to be investing.”
Jenkins highlighted DARPA’s high tolerance for risk. “It was something that was much too risky for groups like the NIH to fund.”
In addition to a high risk tolerance, DARPA operates on a very different model than NIH. Instead of giving multi-year grants that require only periodic progress reports, it awards milestone-based contracts.
DARPA project managers like Jenkins speak with the groups they fund “once a month, sometimes even once every other week, and during something like the coronavirus [outbreak], almost once a day,” she said.
Another difference from NIH is that DARPA is highly focused on achieving its goals, not on advancing science. “We monitor progress closely, but we don't necessarily chase science where it wants to take us. We stay laser-focused on building the capability we need to build. If the path we were taking to getting that capability is not working for scientific reasons, we divert and we take a new path to that same capability.”
CureVac AG became one of the first RNA vaccine companies, in part because of DARPA funding; it was one of the agency’s early bets on the technology. CureVac was also one of the first companies to begin work on a COVID-19 vaccine.
In November 2011, DARPA awarded a $33.1 million contract to a collaboration among CureVac, the Sanofi Pasteur unit of Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NASDAQ:SNY) and In-Cell-Art S.A.S. to advance CureVac’s RNActive technology platform and evaluate vaccine candidates.
“We don’t necessarily chase science where it wants to take us.” - Amy Jenkins, DARPA
CureVac demonstrated proof-of-principle in a Phase I trial launched in 2013, when its mRNA-based rabies vaccine induced antibodies when delivered with a needle-free device. The study was reported in the Lancet.
CureVac was founded in 2000 and had raised about $84 million at time DARPA selected it to lead the consortium.
DARPA also played an important role in helping Moderna establish its mRNA platform, awarding the biotech a contract for up to $25 million in October 2013. In addition to a vote of confidence for an edgy technology, the DARPA award added non-dilutive funding to the 2012 $40 million venture funding from Flagship Pioneering.
Moderna raised over $600 million in a 2018 IPO and has a market cap of $11.6 billion.
DARPA’s funding was directed towards Moderna’s development of RNA vaccines against the chikungunya and Zika viruses.
Moderna’s Phase I trial of a chikungunya vaccine, completed in September 2019, was an important inflection point for the platform and for RNA vaccine technology. It was, the company reported, the “first systemic mRNA therapeutic to show production of a secreted protein in humans.”
“The researchers have demonstrated that it is feasible to use mRNA sequences to produce and scale a highly potent antibody response against an infectious disease target,” said DARPA’s Jenkins in a statement released in September 2019.
Jenkins added that Moderna’s chikungunya vaccine results were encouraging validation of the “prospects of creating a new, platform-based prophylactic and therapeutic approach that might better protect civilians and service members alike against the relentless threat of pandemic disease.”
In addition to RNA vaccines, DARPA helped advance DNA vaccines from concept to reality.
In 2015, the agency allocated $45 million to a project led by Inovio to develop a vaccine and therapies for Ebola. The program funded development of a DNA-based mAb, a conventional protein-based mAb and a DNA-based vaccine.
In 2019, Inovio announced that in a Phase I trial its DARPA-funded Ebola vaccine candidate produced “100% seroreactivity after two doses and elicited interferon-? T-cell responses in over 70% of subjects.” Results were reported in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Accelerating antibody discovery
Although RNA- and DNA-based vaccines could be a major advance, there are inherent disadvantages for the use of vaccines in general in pandemic response.
“The problem with vaccines is twofold,” DARPA’s Jenkins told BioCentury. “One is that oftentimes if you don't know a lot about your pathogen, so it can take a long time to know which components on the surface of that pathogen would be the right component to inject.”
Even in the case of COVID-19, where the spike protein target was rapidly identified because of prior research on the related coronaviruses SARS and MERS, yielding safe, effective vaccines in less than 12-18 months is not feasible.
The other disadvantage, Jenkins added, is that it can take weeks or months after a vaccine is administered for it to produce immunity. In some cases two or more shots are required.
Antibody-based therapies could offer a faster route -- an option DARPA and companies like Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:REGN) and Vir Biotechnology are pursuing.
Unlike vaccines, these mAbs can provide immunity rapidly to yield therapeutic and temporary prophylactic effects.
There is precedent for the use of mAbs to prevent infection. Synagis palivizumab was approved by FDA to prevent serious lower respiratory tract disease caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in pediatric patients at high risk of RSV.
Two mAbs are being used to treat Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo: one from Regeneron and another discovered by Humabs BioMed S.A. and developed by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Humabs, which was acquired in 2017 by Vir, was a subcontractor on a DARPA Ebola antibody discovery contract.
One of the past barriers to use of antibodies in pandemics was that it took up to two years to discover an effective antibody.
DARPA, other government and philanthropic funders, and industry have invested in technologies that have cut the time required to screen for and discover antibodies to days.
In 2018, DARPA launched the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) that seeks to develop a “scalable, adaptable, rapid response platform capable of producing relevant numbers of doses against any known or previously unknown infectious threat within 60 days of identification of such a threat.”
As part of P3, DARPA awarded a four-year $30 million contract in 2018 to AbCellera to apply its antibody discovery platform to viral pandemics. That’s almost three times the $10.8 million in venture funding AbCellera had raised at that time.
AbCellera, like Regeneron and Vir, initiated an antibody discovery program when the sequence of the virus that causes COVID-19 was announced.
The company received a blood sample from one of the first patients in the U.S. known to have recovered from COVID-19, and within a week identified hundreds of antibodies that could be used to create a product with therapeutic or protective properties.
AbCellera, which is using DARPA funding for its COVID-19 R&D, has signed an agreement with Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY) for co-development of an antibody-based product to protect against and/or treat COVID-19. The companies expect to select antibodies, manufacture them, complete preclinical tests and start a Phase I trial within four months (see “AbCellera, Vir Find Partners for COVID-19 mAb Manufacturing Capacity”).
AbCellera also has partnerships with Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD), Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN), Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NASDAQ:SNY), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA; Tel Aviv:TEVA), as well as several smaller biotechs.
Ambitious goals for P3
Because of the work it had started under the P3 program, AbCellera was poised to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
DARPA, however, has goals that go far beyond rapidly discovering effective antibodies.
“P3 aims specifically to develop a scalable, adaptable, rapid response platform capable of producing relevant numbers of doses against any known or previously unknown infectious threat within 60 days of identification of such a threat,” according to the program’s mission statement.
“I believe that with some more investment in the next two years, we would be close to hitting that time frame,” Jenkins told BioCentury.
To do this, DARPA is combining the advances it helped create in nucleic acid vaccines with rapid identification of antibodies, and hoping to use new delivery technologies.
P3 has three elements: new ways to grow viruses for testing and evaluating countermeasures; rapid identification and maturation of antibodies AbCellera is pursuing; and technologies to deliver nucleic acid constructs into patients that encode the antibody and produce a protective response.
The idea, Jenkins said, is to “use that RNA that we've been investing so heavily in as a vaccine modality and just encode the antibody sequence on the RNA and just to deliver the RNA directly into your muscle cells.” The human body would replace bioreactors (see "DNA-encoded and RNA-encoded antibodies").
RNA is easier to manufacture than a protein, so it could be manufactured at scale more quickly, she said.
Few groups are manufacturing RNA and DNA, but Jenkins said she is confident manufacturing challenges will be overcome quickly.
“The biggest barrier right now to the use of DNA or RNA is its delivery, and that has always been our biggest technical challenge around these in these programs,” she said. Clinical studies have demonstrated that RNA can be administered intravenously, but that isn’t an ideal delivery mechanism for a pandemic response.
“That is absolutely going to be a lot of the focus of the remainder of the P3 program,” Jenkins said.
In addition to rapid discovery and manufacturing, meeting the 60-day goal will require collapsing the regulatory timeline.
“While we do not anticipate that this platform would receive pre-approval we could anticipate a situation where once the RNA or DNA technology has been used in a number of clinical trials many of the studies that are typically required could be trimmed or not performed,” Jenkins said.
She envisions circumstances in which the “only component of the new treatment that is being changed is the sequence of the target antibody, the RNA or DNA and their formulations would remain entirely the same as they had in previous clinical studies. This might allow for proceeding to clinical studies without certain time-consuming animal studies which would greatly decrease the time it takes to begin Phase I clinical safety studies.”
https://www.biocentury.com/article/304691/darpa-jump-started-technologies-behind-some-of-the-leading-covid-19-vaccine-and-antibody-hopes
|
|
 "COVID-19 is showing just how challenging disease management can be when it is spread by people with mild symptoms," MBio COO Michael Lochhead said in a statement. "The blood tests we are developing with DARPA will be run on MBio's portable system, allowing use in small spaces with mobile testing teams." New Darpa Funding Point of car diagnostic system |
Front companies hid military use of Bio war programme
|
[excerpted Feb 2021]
Poisons and bacterial pathogens
Once the project’s various structures were in place, the work to develop substances that could be used as chemical and biological weapons finally began, and the wide range of avenues explored is mind-boggling.
Most of the research had a common purpose: to develop agents that could poison human beings and go undetected post-mortem. Scientists began by working with known toxic substances and tried to develop liquid and powder forms that could be used in weapons, ammunition and even in everyday items, such as drinks, cigarettes, chocolates, etc.
Researchers at RRL, which moved to Sinoville, north of Pretoria, in 1985, were studying conventional poisons, including anthrax, botulinum, potassium cyanide, cantharidin and black mamba venom. They also conducted experiments on bacterial pathogens like salmonella and Escherichia coli, and took a keen interest in the organism that causes cholera. Herbicides and pesticides were also seen as having potential and researchers tested the toxicity of various substances on mice, hamsters, dogs, pigs and several different species of primates supplied by RRL. |
|
|
Project Coast conducted its business through three front companies specifically created to conceal the SADF’s involvement in the programme: Delta G Scientific, responsible for production, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), where evaluation and testing were conducted, and Infladel, the administrative and finance company. According to Chandré Gould and Peter Folb’s 2006 UN report, Project Coast: Apartheid’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme:
The front companies of Project Coast were designed to hide the military’s involvement in chemical and biological warfare. It was argued that they would be able to procure equipment and substances more easily than official military structures, an appealing argument in the light of economic sanctions against South Africa. The use of front companies also allowed the scientists access to colleagues internationally and scientists could be attracted by the higher salaries offered at these institutions compared to the military.
|
click on pic for more slides
|
Surge in Cases & Deaths occurred after Mass Vaccination rollout Correlation / causation? Is the Vaccine causingmore fatalities than the disease?
 |
|
The Israeli People`s Committee Report of Adverse Events Related to the Corona Vaccine, April 2021: Never has a vaccine injured so many.
There is a high correlation between the number of people vaccinated per day and the number
of deaths per day, in the range of up to 10 days post vaccination in all age groups. For ages
20-49 – a range of 9 days from the date of vaccination to death; for ages 50-69 – 5 days from
the date of vaccination to death; for ages 70 and up – 3 days from the date of vaccination to
death.
The risk of death after the second vaccination is higher than the risk of death after the first
vaccination.
source
|
or are the Vaccines, actually the cause of "viral contagion" now?
|
Tainted batches of Russia's Sputnik V Covid vaccine sent to Brazil carried a live version of a common cold-causing virus, the South American country's health regulator reported in a presentation explaining its decision to ban the drug's import.
Top virologist Angela Rasmussen told AFP the finding "raises questions about the integrity of the manufacturing processes" and could be a safety issue for people with weaker immune systems, if the problem was found to be widespread.
Russia's Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, has denied the reports.
|
|
PFIZER BIONTECH
https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/the_facts_about_pfizer_and_biontech_s_covid_19_vaccine
|
J&J JANSEN ADVAC TECHNOLOGY
https://www.janssen.com/infectious-diseases-and-vaccines/vaccine-technology
|
RNAi Technology and Investigation on Possible Vaccines to Combat SARS-CoV-2 Infection
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12010-021-03548-2
|
Visualizing nuclear RNAi activity in single living human cells
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651755/
| IAIN DAVIES |
Scenario: The Fake BioTerror control Paradigm for a 4th Industrial technocratic slave state
