Through the Futuroscope
The COVID-19 crisis has frozen time, and yet, there will be a future beyond COVID. What will life be like in 4 months? 6 months? A year? Can we imagine that future? It’s hard, but yes, a new day will come, and progress is inevitable. Remember AIDS? Out of a crisis, new technologies were born. We now have Rapid FDA Review of new drugs, Anonymous Testing Sites, Needle exchange, and Fuzeon (a peptide inhibitor of viral entry) – and those are just a few of the technologies that emerged.
Can you help us imagine the future beyond COVID? What do you predict will be the ‘state of art’ in biotechnology? Send us your thoughts here. My perspective? I predict that vaccines built with T cell epitopes will be made on demand, using in-house GMP peptide production facilities located inside hospitals and pharmacies. You’ll ask for one, they’ll scan the HLA typing chip on your arm, and voilà! your own personalized flu vaccine. I predict that our COVID-19 vaccine EPV-CoV-19 will be one of the first to be deployed exactly in that way – formulated in pharmacies, reaching 1st Responders and Emergency Room workers everywhere. To learn more about the epitope-driven EPV-CoV-19 that EpiVaxers are putting together for #HealthcareHeroes, see here. Yes, we can.
Visit the Future From Your Couch
Speaking of which – we have a new paper on our computational vaccinology toolit, the Mighty Mighty iVAX!: Learn more about Better Epitope Discovery, Precision Immune Engineering, and Accelerated Vaccine Design Using Immunoinformatics Tools in Frontiers in Immunology.
Want to learn more about iVAX while wearing yoga pants and snuggling the dog on the couch? Join us for our webinar about Faster, Better vaccines on April 17th! This discussion and demo session will focus on vaccines and “Science in the time of COVID”. It is free, and open to the public. I do ask that you please register here to reserve your seat.
Still Hot, Why Not? Cancer Vaccines
EpiVax Oncology, a spin-off from EpiVax, is one step closer to making personalized cancer vaccines a reality. During a recent trial, the experts at EpiVax Oncology were able to achieve the production of a personalized vaccine, from biopsy to vaccine, in less than four weeks. Read the press release here. Not only is this GREAT news for oncology, but the advance will also accelerate the development of EPV-CoV-19 for COVID-19.
Become a Billionaire or Save a Million Souls
Another perspective on the humanitarian current crisis: Hello Moderna, minting new Biotech Billionaires like Stéphane Bancel (Moderna) is not cool. Instead, companies that are improving access to innovative technologies for all people on this communal planet that we call home, are going to be the winners. Companies are stepping up to ‘improve human life everywhere’ all over the planet. We’re joining in. EpiVax is working on a peptide-driven vaccine targeted specifically to healthcare workers and first responders that would ease the severity of the disease if contracted. And we’re making it available to developing world countries who have the means of production. Now. Read more about our partnership with GAIA Vaccine Foundation here.