"Others are probing SARS-CoV-2 itself. In a preprint published this month, researchers tinkered with the virus to learn how much it has to change to evade the antibodies generated in vaccine recipients and recovered patients. They found that it took 20 changes to the spike protein to escape current antibody responses almost completely."
It's great that we have the genetic engineering tech to do these experiments and identify new risks while there is still time to be proactive about them. My best guess for the preprint is [0]. Note that the virus they were using is a vesicular stomatitis virus modified so its replication depends on ACE-2 receptor binding via the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein, a copy of which was spliced in. They're not working with SARS-CoV-2 itself. This technically would count as "gain of function research", as recently popularized, and is an example of how the approach can help us identify and respond to emerging threats. It sounds like we may end up handling Covid exactly like the flu, with annual vaccines tailored to whatever strains seem most dangerous for the upcoming year.
> It sounds like we may end up handling Covid exactly like the flu, with annual vaccines tailored to whatever strains seem most dangerous for the upcoming year.
Or, perhaps, we'll do better. People who had SARS-CoV-1 and subsequently were vaccinated against SARS-COV-2 have been shown to have potent immune responses not just against all known variants of SARS-CoV-2 but also the entire genus of Sarbecoviruses. This implies a pan-coronavirus vaccine is at least possible.
I’m curious how long it would take to adapt the mRNA vaccines to the new ones, if there was two changes. I’m assuming it’d have to reach quite a wide infection rate for them to tag a particular variant + development/manufacturing time.
The other question that comes to mind is if they can package two different variants into one or would they just mix the two and keep building on top of existing ones? Unless the other ones get completely replaced.
Making the mRNA in volume is the easy part. They can turn that around extremely quickly-- large prototype quantities in days, and begin ramping sharply in weeks.
The hard part is the formulation chemistry and microfluidics and nanoparticles, which don't change based upon variant mix.
Of course, the really hard part is approval, but we feel we understand influenza viruses and vaccines enough to have developed an expedited approval process each year. We should be able to do the same for COVID-19.
Why don’t they link to any of the papers they reference? Or at least provide some better clues.
> Something similar appears to have happened when a new H1N1 influenza strain emerged in 2009 and caused a pandemic, says Katia Kölle, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University. A 2015 paper found that changes in the virus in the first 2 years appeared to make the virus more adept at human-to-human transmission, whereas changes after 2011 were mostly to avoid human immunity.
It doesn’t look like Katia Kölle wrote this one and searching keywords gave me a ton of other stuff.
How is the progression of SARS-CoV-2 different from that of every other endemic virus, and how have our vaccine distributions affected its evolution?
Very neat article.
For instance, are there other viruses which were devastating when they first hit a species, only to evolve to less devastating but eternal as the species collectively gets perhaps not herd immunity but herd resistance?
That's probably what happened with HCoV-OC43, a betacoronavirus very similar to SARS-CoV-2. The evidence indicates that it caused a worldwide pandemic starting in 1889 and killed a lot of people. Now it's endemic. Most of us catch it when we're young and build up natural immunity. There doesn't appear to be much herd immunity.
Isn’t this article basically discussing that? Looking at how other viruses have behaved and trying to analyze how COVID-19 may also potentially behave going forward, if it were to take the route of those other viruses?
Viral evolution is one of the primary factors around pretty much all virus progression and disease. It’s a major study in the field of epidemiology.
Given that there’s still a lack of belief of evolution in the general public (polls put it around 40-50% in US) it’s not surprising that it’s not more talked about in the media.
But in the scientific and medical community it was not even a question that the virus was going to evolve through multiple strains.
Viral evolution is why we have yearly flu shots rather than 1 to cover a lifetime. Its also why HIV has been so hard to create a vaccine for. HIV is able to handle lots of mutations and still function, so it means there’s a multitude of strains.
A good portion of those who don't believe in evolution, do believe in 'micro-evolution', where say the colors of the butterfly adapts to the changes in the colors of the trees. They just don't believe in the idea that evolution can form new species.
That’d be an interesting study to conduct (has it been?).
The question would then arise,
do people who only believe in “micro-evolution”, have enough open mindedness to appreciate that virus evolution can lead to significant changes in pathogen virulence and transmission. And do they make appropriate policy decisions based on it.
My feeling is that those beliefs are in fact harmful, but I don’t know really how much of an issue it is. Do people who don’t want to wear masks appreciate the danger of allowing the virus to infect large numbers of people, thereby creating a significantly larger chance of mutation? Is not wearing masks part of the misunderstanding or unfamiliarity with the evolutionary issues? I don’t know.
> Given that there’s still a lack of belief of evolution in the general public (polls put it around 40-50% in US) it’s not surprising that it’s not more talked about in the media.
Lol - the intersection of people working in the media (especially mainstream media) and creationists is virtually the null set.
If 50% of your market is offended by it you won’t talk about it.
For media that caters to the other 50% it’s still a complex subject for media sound bites.
Also you don’t have to be a “creationist” to not believe, although I guess it depends on that definition. But creationist makes it sound like it’s a tiny minority extremist group. Year after year multiple studies put non belief of evolution at at least 40%. I can almost guarantee a significant percentage of the media are likewise skeptical or non believers of evolution (they may be rather reserved and personal about it, but still effect their judgement or assessment of reporting on the topic)
That doesn’t even make sense. Mutations either will have no effect, or increase or decrease the viruses ability to spread and replicate. It’s basically the definition of evolution.
On top of which viral genomes, especially RNA viruses, mutate at such a rapid rate, evolution occurs quickly.
There can be some confusion on the definition, and often evolution is equated with natural selection, However, selection doesn’t actually need to occur for mutations to be considered evolution.
One definition of evolution is “change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations”
Mutations that effect phenotype (heritable characteristics), may not confer either an immediate advantage nor disadvantage, but we can still witness evolution in terms of increased (or decreased) diversity. Sometimes selection pressure on that diversity may not occur for some time.
Take for example two very differently sized and separate breeding populations of a species. The larger breeding population will tend to harbor more mutations generating new phenotypes, than the smaller one. When selective pressure then is exerted on both populations, the larger population will often fair better. So did the “evolution” occur before or after the selection pressure. It’s valid to say the evolution occurred before, since we can measure the differences between the populations and see a difference even before the selection.
This mechanism is called genetic drift and is an important part of evolution.
On the other end, mutations that don’t effect phenotype, ie that can’t have a selective advantage or disadvantage usually aren’t even worth talking about, they’re generally noise (think junk DNA).
Edit: And genetic drift is actually an incredibly important reason why masking is so important and helpful. Limiting the replication of the virus means that on top of saving people, we are limiting the genetic variability that will begin to occur in larger rapidly mutating populations, even ones that aren’t facing specific selection pressure. So when we do put a strong selection on them with a vaccine, we prefer to do it on the smallest population we can.
It's great that we have the genetic engineering tech to do these experiments and identify new risks while there is still time to be proactive about them. My best guess for the preprint is [0]. Note that the virus they were using is a vesicular stomatitis virus modified so its replication depends on ACE-2 receptor binding via the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein, a copy of which was spliced in. They're not working with SARS-CoV-2 itself. This technically would count as "gain of function research", as recently popularized, and is an example of how the approach can help us identify and respond to emerging threats. It sounds like we may end up handling Covid exactly like the flu, with annual vaccines tailored to whatever strains seem most dangerous for the upcoming year.
[0] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.21.214759v1....