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Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LTK007 who wrote (87)	4/11/2003 9:57:03 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4232

this being viewed as a mutation conovirus that is actually only has a distant relationship to the other known conoviruses, does this not leave those working for a vaccine virtually at square one? Well it's not as if there is any existing vaccine against any coronavirus, so they would be starting at square one even if it was similar to existing coronaviruses. There's an article earlier in the thread that discusses the two possible ways to make a vaccine. The quick and dirty version is a killed virus vaccine, but that involves dealing with bunches of live vaccine. The alternative is to sequence the virus and come up with a vaccine against some protein on its surface. Much slower, but safer. Of course we still don't know if this virus is going to be more like viruses we have effective vaccines against (measles, rubella, polio, etc.) or more like the viruses (like traditional cold viruses) where there are multiple strains and constant change. My guess is that it's unlikely to be like HIV where nothing stays put long enough to be an easy target for a vaccine. Rick (our resident immunologist) is much more qualified to discuss this than me, so take what I say with appropriate caution. Peter