Thread by @sailorrooscout

Good morning!
I have some updates! 🧫🧬🦠
Preliminary data from our studies indicate our vaccine along with Pfizer’s will likely be effective against the Coronavirus variants and ALL of their associated mutations detected in the U.K. and South Africa (B.1.1.7 and 501.V2).

Even if the South African variant becomes more widespread and dominant, the mRNA (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) and adenovirus-vectored (Oxford-AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V) vaccines can be modified to be more close-fitting and effective against this variant in a few months.

These mutations have not been able to alter the S protein’s shape to the extent that the vaccine-induced antibodies provided by these vaccines are not able to bind at all. We are still looking into the Brazil-Japan variant B.1.1.248. If you want more information on variants see:

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1348663879077933075

Also important to note for those who are skeptical. Yes, I know. Furry pfp obviously equals unreliable right? That’s okay! ☺️ I’ll still continue to put my information out.

https://twitter.com/atulgupta_md/status/1347391689376157696

Whew, okay. You guys are gonna have to give me a minute to get to comments and DMs. I promise I’ll answer them all. Also for those asking when the data is coming out, please stay tuned. It’s coming. I just wanted to give the heads up. cnbc.com/2021/01/11/cov…

And for Moderna. “Laboratory studies indicate that its current vaccine, first authorized in the US in December, should protect against all the major variants now being tracked, including one in the UK.” Also concerning modifying without new trials: technologyreview.com/2021/01/13/101…

It will take a large amount of genetic diversity to completely make the current vaccines useless. Let me explain why because some of you guys are linking me to a study that involves monoclonal antibody therapies (and their possible inability to combat the E484K mutation). Don’t.

They ARE NOT the same. Unlike monoclonal antibody therapies, vaccines (especially these using the whole spike protein) make POLYCLONAL antibody responses. This means that the antibodies created will be able to bind the Coronavirus spike in multiple places not just one.

Also, not to be rude but how are you going to link me to a study that doesn’t even factor in T-cell immunity? Antibodies from natural infection decline with COVID. B and T cells remember the threat and play a HUGE roll in preventing reinfection and dealing with these variants.

The data concerning the efficacy of these vaccines on these particular variants is to be coming out this week and as soon as I can provide it I gladly will. If you have any questions in the meantime I’ll will gladly answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you!

If you need more confirmation please see.

https://twitter.com/guptar_lab/status/1351181780804636675

Again, I wanted to specify the similarities and differences between the variants and their specific mutations that we are targeting with our vaccines. This reviews Variants B.1.1.7 (UK), 501.V2 (South Africa), and B.1.1.248 (Brazil-Japan).

Here we go! Let me bring some official good news to your morning. Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 pseudovirus by BNT162b2 (BioNTech-Pfizer) vaccine-elicited human sera. This is for the UK variant. Information on South Africa variant to come.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

For those who didn’t see it this morning in short: we received official word the vaccines are effective against the UK variant B.1.1.7! I’ll update when we have the official data for the South Africa variant 501.V2!