Thread by @vipintukur

It is totally absurd to run *after* the future, predicted or expected mutation to base your vaccines.

You can't make new vaccine just based on general knowledge that next VOC will likely contain an escape mutation to some unknown amino acid at the few possible sites. 1/

Experts like @jbloom_lab can predict (& they have predicted correctly in the past) what sites are likely to play key roles in future antigenic evolution, but to make a vaccine, you need to predict an exact future sequence. 2/

And we may *never* be able to predict the complete genetic makeup of a future variant. It's not just technical limitations that hamper evolutionary prediction. We don't really know how predictable #SARS2 evolution is even in principle. 3/

Then, why not adopt other approaches to develop next generation vaccines. Like selecting certain conserved epitopes to develop a pan-sarbecovirus vaccine. Or develop a multi-pronged vaccine. Or an infection blocking mucosal vaccine? 4/

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Multipronged vaccine protects against COVID virus family members — even some still in hiding. 5/

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

These mosaic/cocktail vaccines are currently envisioned as a way to get a broader response, but you could also imagine that they might reduce burden to get any given prediction exactly correct (if there are a lot of components). 6/
@jbloom_lab

The major limitation of current vaccines is their inability to block infection and transmission of rapidly evolving SARS2 virus.

Just imagine…. 7/

…how different the last few years might have been had a vaccine capable of blocking the SARS2 virus been administered to workers at the Huanan Market in Wuhan—where, scientists suspect, a raccoon dog infected a vendor & set off a pandemic that has killed >6.3 million people 8/

And we know…long before COVID-19 transformed daily life, scientists were aware of the possibility that a coronavirus could make the leap from an animal species to the human population. 9/

latimes.com/science/story/…

Please go through this excellent 🧵on these issue by none other than @jbloom_lab here 👇

https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1547370836956676096?s=21&t=NXzMkVGLPc1m7zc8Spq0Kg