Japanese universities develop speedier analysis of coronavirus mutations

Japanese universities develop speedier analysis of coronavirus mutations

It will be useless without vaccine that can handle new mutant.

By the time they have injected everyone it will be ineffective.

Not exactly the best timing to deal with the current crisis, but still a very nice advancement, maybe it will help with further variants that will inevitably appear (at least in Japan where vaccination seems to be still a year in the future for most people), but it will definirte be useful for the next emerging disease, be it a pandemic or not.

Production of infectious clones of pathogens for study is a tedious and complicated process that has to be done "blindly" for a week or so until the researcher can confirm it got the results he wanted. If this new technique simplify the process then a lot of work in molecular biology of viruses becomes much faster and easier to do.

How about putting this Energy and BRAINS towards developing a vaccine better yet a system to Vaccinate as many people as possible by the end of this year? then we can start analyzing how the virus is mutating!!!?

How about putting this Energy and BRAINS towards developing a vaccine better yet a system to Vaccinate as many people as possible by the end of this year? then we can start analyzing how the virus is mutating!!!?

Those are already developed and functioning, the problem is not a lack of vaccines or vaccination systems (you can see many examples around the world where they are being successfully used right now) the problem is making the government adopt them. At this point Japanese researchers can't even get approval for clinical trials of locally developed vaccines, which is why many focus on this kind of research, that can be finished without ever needing clinical trials.

Another thing is that analyzing how the virus mutates is precisely a very important part of the vaccine development process, there is no point in making a vaccine for last year variants if you can readily identify which new ones are going to become prevalent or dangerous in the near future.

Not exactly the best timing to deal with the current crisis, 

You don't have the expertise to judge that. You just don't have it. So what makes you think you can give your opinion on something you just can't understand? Did you even read their paper? You are not a scientist, so I don't see why you need to judge people's work that again you don't understand whatsoever. And then you spent again lines of words put randomly that scientifically have no background and make little sense. Just stop, this is not helpful.

You don't have the expertise to judge that. You just don't have it. 

That is not an argument, it is just your opinion. So, only you are supposed to give opinions? You are also completely assuming something you don't know about (what is my occupation according to you?) sorry but your comment about other people understandings or expertise is irrelevant and even against the rules of the site. How about discussing the arguments instead of trying to discuss the people?

So, you could not understand what I wrote, the same as when you assumed "escape mutants" was nonsense words? you can just ask.

Osaka University and Hokkaido University in Japan have developed a system capable of analyzing genetic mutations of the novel coronavirus much quicker than conventional methods.

So what ?

what is the essence, when people cannot easily get a government funded free PCR test something

that is freely available in some 3rd world African countries with a national budget one-millionth that

of Japan.

Is it not the same Osaka university that is developing Japan's first MRNA Vaccine and has

not been able to come out with one despite the Government pumping in hundreds of million into

the development. There is always that tendency to rush and publish articles like this in the early stages

of development raising false hopes.

This could provide some useful information, but since they're dealing with infectious clones of SARS-CoV-2, I worry about the potential of generating some unexpected deadlier variants.

One application I do hope they will pursue is to use their technique "to generate an avirulent strain for use as a safe live-attenuated vaccine for SARS-CoV-2" (which they briefly mention in their paper).

If anyone is interested:

https://www.cell.com/covid-19-archive?ContribAuthorStored=Drake%2C+Lisa+A&pageSize=25&ContentItemCategory=Report&SeriesKey=celrep&startPage=&ContribAuthorRaw=Anzai%2C%20Itsuki

what is the essence, when people cannot easily get a government funded free PCR test something

that is freely available in some 3rd world African countries with a national budget one-millionth that

of Japan.

The thing is that advancements in science do not apply only to the place where they are discovered, this can help a lot to efforts done to control the spreading and predict new variants all over the world. In theory this can help prevent the appearance of new variants or react very quickly to them.

This could provide some useful information, but since they're dealing with infectious clones of SARS-CoV-2, I worry about the potential of generating some unexpected deadlier variants.

That is the whole point, at this moment the virus is rampant around the world, and variants are bound to keep appearing as long as continued spreading does not stop by everybody being immunized. This mean there is a chance of deadlier variants appearing unexpectedly. The research is meant to allow researchers to identify this before it happens in the wild so countermeasures can be put in order opportunely.

Once the disease is controlled in the world and this risk of natural appearance of variants is reduced then it becomes more important to regulate more the research being done with COVID-19, but at this point the natural risk is simply too big to restrain from effective ways to fight it opportunely.

Attenuated vaccines are not going to be a realistic probability in the near future, not only they would need to demonstrate better efficacy than the options already available, they would have more problems demonstrating safety because the possibility of revertants, pathogenic replication, etc. is quite more difficult to demonstrate as absent.

Is it not the same Osaka university that is developing Japan's first MRNA Vaccine and has

not been able to come out with one despite the Government pumping in hundreds of million into

the development. There is always that tendency to rush and publish articles like this in the early stages

of development raising false hopes.

Sorry I forgot to include something about this. The laboratory that developed this is not the same that is doing the trials with the vaccine in the Osaka University, (which by the lack of announcements at this point is very likely not a viable candidate anymore). And it is not a false hope either, the research as it is published is already useful for any laboratory working with infectious clones of pathogens.

Japanese universities develop speedier analysis of coronavirus mutations.

The researchers didn't get the LDP memo that pre-Olympics such increased granularity in testing and tracing of COVID is frowned upon.

I don’t care, I just want to have the right to get a test anytime I want.

Good to see Japanese academics adding something to the coronavirus battle recently. Also noticed an ultra fast test which has been made by another university in Japan recently too.

Japan has some excellent medical research institutions. This battle needs every developed country to contribute as much as possible to research and production. Half the planet isn’t in a position to help itself, so it’s up to us to step up.

I sense that’s been happening - just seems that politicians are always in the way.

University of Japan still have effective technology.

But recent arrogant and optimistic government of Japan often ignores it.

A nice wheel re-invention...lol I am sure we all could have done that too, just with a phone call to other countries’ institutions, and asking them how they do that already for months.

It is a very good news. I hope very much that Japan develops an independent and more trustful vaccine.

The present vaccines "authorized for emergency use" are not fully researched (developed at "warp speed"). There are no long-term studies on side effects (side effects happening after a year or two after injection), and there are disturbing short-time side-effects (bell's palsy, clots, myocardia, vaginal bleeding etc).

A nice wheel re-invention...lol I am sure we all could have done that too, just with a phone call to other countries’ institutions, and asking them how they do that already for months.

A bacteria-independent production of coronavirus infectious clones for quick variant characterization? Where exactly? because only this group has published this application.

All that hard work only to be defeated when it inevitably encounters sclerotic Japanese bureaucracy.

Fortunately this do not include any kind of involvement of clinical trials or even human samples so a lot of red tape can simply be ignored. Also, this can benefit the work of researchers around the world accelerating the production of important results without involving any Japanese institution.

The present vaccines "authorized for emergency use" are not fully researched (developed at "warp speed"). There are no long-term studies on side effects (side effects happening after a year or two after injection), and there are disturbing short-time side-effects (bell's palsy, clots, myocardia, vaginal bleeding etc).

The present vaccines are the product of research that took more than 10 years, COVID has already long-term and even permanent problems, so the vaccines still hold a safety advantage here and none of the short time side effects are as significative as the problems COVID-19 produce (and in some cases they are not even more elevated in vaccinated people when compared with non-vaccinated people).

In general it is still completely valid to say that being vaccinated importantly decreases the risk of death or important health problems for anybody in the target population.

The present vaccines are the product of research that took more than 10 years, COVID has already long-term and even permanent problems, so the vaccines still hold a safety advantage here and none of the short time side effects are as significative as the problems COVID-19 produce (and in some cases they are not even more elevated in vaccinated people when compared with non-vaccinated people).

In general it is still completely valid to say that being vaccinated importantly decreases the risk of death or important health problems for anybody in the target population.

And what if the third shot is the kill shot?

And what if the third shot is the kill shot?

And what if the third shot prevents cancer? I mean, just throwing out possibilities without any evidence is meaningless. Put forward a congruent mechanism, with some evidence that you should be able to find if this was true, then compare with the evidence you can actually find from the vaccinated people. Then you will be able to evaluate this risk and use this evaluation as an argument.

Just imagining things that could happen can be contradicted by imagining that they could not happen.

It is a very good news. I hope very much that Japan develops an independent and more trustful vaccine.The present vaccines "authorized for emergency use" are not fully researched (developed at "warp speed"). There are no long-term studies on side effects (side effects happening after a year or two after injection), and there are disturbing short-time side-effects (bell's palsy, clots, myocardia, vaginal bleeding etc).

Indeed.

I prefer the approach of an inactivated virus over putting all our eggs into one basket with the mRNA vaccine directed towards only one protein (more prone to becoming ineffective towards future variants).

I prefer the approach of an inactivated virus over putting all our eggs into one basket with the mRNA vaccine directed towards only one protein (more prone to becoming ineffective towards future variants).

That was never going to be the first choice, because if even it is simple and cheap it comes with higher risks from causing autoimmune diseases because every protein becomes an antigen, so it increases the chances of any of those proteins to be similar enough to one protein in the body to cause problems.

For coronavirus in particular the other risk is that vaccines without intracellular expression steps stimulate too much the inflammatory immune responses, so it can produce more negative side effects without any increase in efficacy.

That is why vectored RNA vaccines were the first choice, experts made a bet for safety and won by getting also high efficacy.