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In a world of slop and 10 second sound bytes, this interview with @NikoMcCarty is your antidote. If you want to hear what has been by far the best researched and most detailed interview I’ve done to date, check out this video where we go really deep on universal vaccines and universal antivenoms. Now excuse me while I go follow Niko’s interview channels. #universal #vaccines #antivenom #eradication
New episode on universal flu vaccines (and antivenoms) with @CurlyJungleJake, CEO of @centivax. They're trying to create a vaccine that protects against all strains of influenza: past, present, and future.
This is obviously a difficult thing to do. Seasonal flu vaccines are designed to protect against a virus that constantly mutates and recombines in animals. The efficacy of seasonal vaccines is also quite low; ranging from about 15 to 60 percent.
Instead of making vaccines that protect against only a few circulating strains of the virus, Centivax is trying to teach the immune system to recognize parts of the virus that many strains share and that resist mutation. The hope is that antibodies targeting these regions could protect even against strains we haven’t encountered yet, without scientists having to reformulate the vaccine every year.
Things seem to be going well: the company has tested the vaccine in about 180 people so far and will soon begin a Phase 2 trial.
This is probably the most ambitious technical interview I’ve ever done. We cover some extremely deep immunology, but Jake explained the ideas really clearly, and I left feeling like I finally understood how vaccines work and how scientists make them. I also came away much more convinced that a universal flu vaccine could work.
00:49 — Why flu vaccines need constant updating
03:07 — How influenza infects a cell
06:39 — Why our bodies don’t always make broadly-neutralizing antibodies
16:07 — Mutations and animals
23:42 — What is vaccine efficacy?
28:55 — Designing a universal flu vaccine
37:40 — The idea behind Centivax
44:16 — Clinical trials
57:33 — The business case for eradication
1:03:26 — How to eradicate the flu
1:07:26 — Could we make broad vaccines for the common cold?
1:09:07 — Building a universal snake antivenom
1:23:09 — Antivenom cocktailsView quoted post on X
