this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
945 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

59374 readers
6873 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 259 points 10 months ago (37 children)

The vaccine works by instructing the body to make up to 34 “neoantigens.” These are proteins found only on the cancer cells, and Moderna personalizes the vaccine for each recipient so that it carries instructions for the neoantigens on their cancer cells.

That’s pretty dope

[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago (28 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It'll be reasonably expensive, but sequencing and gene alteration is way cheaper than in needs to be.

If this can actually cure cancers, it may even be worth it.

The thing is, surely there's antibody against cancer antigens anyway, in ordinary cancer. A cancer cell expresses epitopes not on healthy cells.

Why is this better?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

but sequencing and gene alteration is way cheaper than in[sic] needs to be.

...what? this sounds like you're advocating for price increases.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Oops, new to Lemmy. But not new to typing, so no excuse.

I meant than "it used to be".

I blame autocorrect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I think "reasonable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Whatever price they charge it will be to maximize to Moderna's profits - i.e. they'll price it slightly lower than what insurers / national health systems would be stung for what 44% of melanoma patients needing a second round of expensive chemo would cost them but not so high that no one will cover the treatment. So I guess the price is "reasonable", in that it'll be cheaper than the alternative but it's not like Moderna will be charitable or fair about it.

It's still an amazing breakthrough though.

load more comments (25 replies)
load more comments (33 replies)