BillsFanNC
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Posts posted by BillsFanNC
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I'm probably not much better qualified than you are to answer those questions, my invlovement in the influenza vaccine project revolved around finding adjuvants that would enhance the immune response in the elderly when added to the existing vaccine. However, it is my understanding that antigenic shift is the bigger problem in influenza. Antigenic shift essentially creates new heamagluttinin or neuraminidase proteins with epitopes that are unrecognizable to existing circulating serum antibodies. I do remember using a H3N2 from 2001 in an ELISA that would give me a signal when using serum from mice immunized with a 1999 H3N2 strain, any differences there would be the result of antigenic drift.
I have some antigenic drift/shift questions wrt influenza vaccine development, if you don't mind.How much change in the individual envelope components is necessary for an evasion of recognition? Basically, do minor changes in the protein secondary structure result in major problems for antigen recognition?
How predictive are the models as far as measuring the rate of antigenic drift? Is there a known frequency for the point mutations that lead to antigenic drift in influenza, and are there biases towards certain envelope component combinations?
Lastly,
, how much of the above is taken into account when designing the vaccine, if any? -
I have worked on influenza vaccine in the past, your garden variety A/H3N2, A/H1N1 and B strains though, not H5N1. JC's synopsis is a very good one.
To be completely fair, I am a bacteriologist, not a virologist. However, the basic hurdles for getting something safely into humans are roughly the same for antibiotics or vaccines. As far as safety is concerned, you just can’t mass-manufacture something overnight and start injecting it into humans, no matter how “fast-tracked” that something is. Unlike antibiotics or some antivirals which act directly on the organism/virus, a vaccine is designed to produce an immune response and recognition mechanism so that the second time an individual “sees” this object again it can eliminate it before it can do considerable damage. That can compound the safety/effectiveness issue for a vaccine.The hurdles are how much should be administered to get the appropriate primary response, yet also achieve immunologic memory, ie the ability to quickly recognize the foreign object. A memory response can take several days for the body to ramp up its mechanisms to combat an infection. In the case of the influenza virus, it has such a rapid incubation period that symptoms are already apparent before the body can muster a defense. Therefore, you need to have the primary response already in place, via an adequate number (serum level or titer) of antibodies.
A second problem is the viral surface variability. The vaccine could ultimately be useless if the primary immune response and immunologic memory are generated for the H5N1 (the components of the viral envelope) surface, but a mutation changes the makeup of the envelop proteins. You will probably hear the words “antigenic shift” in the news. All this means is that a mutation occurred and the proteins of the viral envelope that the body recognizes have changed, causing problems with the recognition aspect of the immune response.
Clearly there are people infinitely more qualified than me in the virology field who could probably do a better job of relaying this information. But I will do my best to explain in simpler terms any information that I come across on this subject…dude.
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Wow, that sure brings back some memories.
We lived in a band house in the Oak Square area of Brighton/Boston. Pretty squalor-iffic conditions, but we didn’t care because we were just a bunch of kids. Not a care in the world.
Anyway, we were up all night practicing and drinking gin, which was a luxury because we were dirt poor and mainly drank cheap beer. But that’s neither here-nor-there.
So, we’re done practicing and we’ve killed off the bottles of gin we had, and we all go off to our cardboard slabs to pass out. A few hours later, I have to use the head. So I go in to the bathroom and flick on the light. To my surprise, there’s a rat doing the dog-paddle in the toilet. I kick the lid down with my foot and slam the bathroom door behind me, to try and trap that sucker in the bathroom.
I go over to my buddy Tommy’s cardboard slab and nudge him with my foot.
“Hey, Tommy.” I say.
No response, which wasn’t a shock because we were up pretty late getting loaded on warm gin.
“Hey, Tommy.” I say again, and kick him in the ribs.
“What the **** do you want, man” says Tommy.
“Dude”, I say, “There’s a huge rat in the toilet.”
“No way!”
“Way!”
“Well what are we gonna do?”
Neither one of us were thinking too straight, and I was further hampered because I was sitting on a golf ball at that point.
“Look, man” I said, “I’m going in. Whatever happens in there, just don’t open the door.”
“I owe you my life, dude” (writer embellishment)
So I go in, plunger in hand, like an ancient warrior headed into a dragon’s lair (more embellishment) and slam the bathroom door behind me.
I kick open the toilet seat.
I look at the rat.
The rat looks at me.
And I go medieval on his ass, and plunge that dude like he just ate my whole village.
He thrashed.
I plunged harder.
He thrashed some more.
I smoked a cigarette.
He thrashed one last time.
I fell for it and lifted the plunger.
He had used the air in the plunger bulb to ride out my suffocating blows. He was a worthy opponent, but I was sitting on a golf ball and I would not be denied.
I thrust one last time and pushed all the air out of the plunger, holding him under for what seemed like an eternity (writer embellishment, probably a minute and a half).
The game was done. I removed the instrument of death (come on, man, it’s a freaking plunger), saluted his valiant effort, and flushed his carcass into the unknown.
Whenever the "What poster from TSW would you most like to have a beer with..." poll comes out, you've got my vote. Hilarious stuff. -
So how is that Corey Simon fellow doing?
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Why are we here?
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This is really going to hinder Anderson's development.
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The retard rollercoaster is jammed packed this week. I say bring back the OT's.
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It closed a little while back I think due to a problem with their lease. A poster here (EDinKC) is the owner's brother, in a PM a few weeks ago he told me that his brother is close to finalizing something and that they will be opening at a new location soon in the same general vicinity. Hopefully by November 1st.
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I just completed a series of experiments that lasted about three months. Early on I had some very promising data that suggested a certain compound significantly enhanced the efficacy of a vaccine. I reported as such to my co-workers and supervisor the apparent breakthrough while continuing to design experiments that would confirm my initial observations. In the end however, the data told me that the compound was not as promising as the early data had suggested. I guess I lied.
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You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.
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The board is in rare form today. It's as though 3/4 of the posters ate too much rettata and then hopped on the retard roller coaster and puked it all over the wall.
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Well if you're in the football pool then you're aware that I know more about correctly picking the winners of NFL games than anyone here.
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Thanks. Although you guys probably don't want to hear that I made those picks at 2 AM Sunday morning after having a few too many beers. I also forgot to make my pick for the survivor pool so the computer randomly picked Tennessee to keep me alive!
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I don't think there is a homebrewer in existence who would have the patience to let that fully condition. I would recommend trying one after it's been bottled for two weeks and then every three weeks or so thereafter. While it will be perfectly delicious after the two weeks in the bottle, you'll see how the flavor changes over time to be what you are used to from commercial examples.
You'll see as well that you never have enough homebrew. Just last month I had four kegs going. Two parties later and I'm dry....
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You touched on the real problem. The problem you have is that the mass-producers need to minimize taste in order to sell more beer. The more taste you have, the more chance that people will not like it. Their beers need to be as inoffensive as possible. You need to go to the smaller producers to get more taste since that is their focus, not mass quantities.
Yes. American macro beer = Hot Pockets.
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Exactly. Here is a great article about appreciating craft beers with food.
http://beeradvocate.com/news/stories_read/643/
What we need is a wake-up call to both brewers and restaurateurs. We need brewers and their distributors to put some real focus and actual effort on selling quality craft beer to fine dining establishments, and restaurateurs to simply just wake the hell up.This should be an easy task. It's a fact that because beer is so versatile, it pairs better with food than wine. There's more complexity in the range of a single beer style than there is for wine. Beer is also perfect for infusing with food, and, like wine, many beers can be cellared and sold as vintage. Pair this with proper presentation and glassware, and restaurateurs could have a lot of fun integrating the No. 1 alcoholic beverage in America into their menus.
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Bucs - 21 Bills - 17
And by 4:30 this Sunday TSW is yelling billsfanone all over again.
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Where in NC are you? It's everywhere man! Those beers started showing up on shelves within days of the governor signing it into law.
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Not sure if the reason is because of Celiac disease, but if it is then you should check out Bard's Tale beer, a gluten free beer brewed with sorghum. I have tried it myself and it's pretty darn good.
What are you drinking tonight?
in The Stadium Wall Archives
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Those commericals for Bud Select are hilarious. "Brewed longer for a cleaner taste..." "Only the finest noble hops are used". It's complete nonsense.