Member Info for RayPointer

You can't help feeling that Lindy's work has been a strong catalyst to the creation of the BDI.

Rats, I'm no good at predicting Scancell's SP but I can predict that you will be called before the headmaster

Bunsie AKA Bumsie

You're never too old to learn about cricket.

https://www.liveabout.com/cricket-pitch-basics-962050

Call me a snob but I'm a member of Lozan's M F F F club. Our club was formed in 1881 when Victoria was on the throne. We look down on the recently formed upstart clubs.

I have just founded "team bored".
For the first committee meeting, no motions were passed as everybody was fast asleep.

Excellent link, full of useful information.
10 to the power 8 i.e. 100,000,000 target specific T Cells.
Interesting to know how the immune system deals with T Cells targeting self.
Also interesting to know about survival signals for non-self T Cells.

But going back to the staggering number of targets. It is no surprise that a great deal of research goes into finding those elusive cancer targets. Could moditope targets turn out to be priceless?

With Covid19 it appears that the task of finding targets is much easier since so many researchers are working on this and publishing their findings and there are much fewer candidate targets. Lindy will no doubt be reading all these informative articles in her tea break.

What I found amazing is the size of a TCell compared to an antibody.
But remember a T Cell typically has 10 to the power of 5 receptors, that 100,000 receptors.
I well remember a post of crumbs which had a link to a video of TCells circling and killing a tumour cell. They seemed to roll along the surface of the tumour cell. Presumably as the T Cell rolled along the surface different receptors were binding to the tumour cell.

Here's a video of how it all happens. In this case it is virus infected cells:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDEduT62Awc

What immunobody does is ensure that the appropriate TCells are activated with a high level of avidity (i.e the ability to bind to the target).

Looking good C7

I braved having a haircut the other day.
I was quite impressed with the precautions. Mask and visor worn by both staff. Chair wiped down with sanitiser after each customer. Only 1 customer allowed in the waiting area. Name and number entered for each customer.
I feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The trouble is I can now see the cricket.

Yes, but if this was a pub conversation, the listeners would have asked "who are you talking about rats?" . Perhaps we should conduct the B&B on Zoom.

I saw Rat's post about news to be about the kind of poster who appears on good news and then proceeds to ramp the share. This will be £1 by Christmas or Lindy tells me good news is imminent. I certainly didn't see it as aimed at any of the regular posters here.
As Bunsie has pointed out recently, BB posts can so easily be misinterpreted.

I feel exactly the same.
Whilst it would be nice to have an operational update, I don't think it will make an hapeth of difference to the final outcome.

Brilliant Rats

Thanks WTP.
I had a touch of insomnia last night (R value = 0) and so I watched the video.

Here is the nature article mentioned in the video

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z

Of importance to Scancell's project is the following at the very start of the abstract:

"Memory T cells induced by previous pathogens can shape the susceptibility to, and clinical severity of, subsequent infections1. Little is known about the presence of pre-existing memory T cells in humans with the potential to recognize SARS-CoV-2. Here, we first studied T cell responses to structural (nucleocapsid protein, NP) and non-structural (NSP-7 and NSP13 of ORF1) regions of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 convalescents (n=36). In all of them we demonstrated the presence of CD4 and CD8 T cells recognizing multiple regions of the NP protein."

It does look like Lindy is on the right track.
Memory T Cells live a lot longer than Antibodies.
Also contracting another coronavirus such as the common cold can provide some immunity. This is due to the common epitopes that exist between different coronaviruses. Hence Lindy is interested in the nucleocapsid protein not only because it is important for Covid19 but also it appears all the other coronavirues (past and possibly future).

He's probably looking forward to a nice ice-cold beer

Cricket stopped play LOL

I knew exactly what Inan meant by referring to the "Gold" standard.
If you have a platform that can successfully generate immune system components against cancer and those components are also relevant to a wide range of other diseases then quite possibly that platform becomes dominant.
Whether this applies to Immunobody we have to wait and see and it no doubt needs a number of trials on different diseases to prove this.
I am just glad that Lindy has a chance to prove her platform against Covid19.
More discussion on the actual point Inan was making would be useful.

Hi C7
I am very encouraged by the many articles that postulate the importance of a T Cell response. I am also encouraged by Lindy's approach to create antibodies but also to target epitopes on more than 1 protein with T Cells.
But above all she is able to use a platform that is proven to give the T Cells high avidity and strong clonal expansion. This may prove to be essential for the people who really need the vaccine to be effective.
I have also found a short article that indicates that people who have recently caught a cold may have more immunity to covid19. Perhaps this is due to T Cells that target the N proteins.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-t-cells-patients-immune-system

We know that Lindy is targeting the N proteins that she believes to be a constant across all coronaviruses

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27142/

This is an interesting book about the role of T Cells in antibody production.

Now an interesting question about the Oxford vaccine.
Does it activate T Cells solely for the production of antibodies?
Alternatively, can it activate T Cells for targets other than that of the neutralising antibodies?

Hi Ivy
If you watch the end of Lindy's presentation, you will hear her saying that 2 companies were interested at that time. This was back in 2015. So I would think it likely that 2 of the 3 collaborators are these 2 companies. So here's a case in point where it appears likely that 2 companies were just waiting for the research to conclude. But as with a lot of novel research, there was a problem encountered. Loss of avidity and hence killing action.
Lindy has solved this problem by adding elements of the murine mAB to the humanised mAB. In doing so, she not only solved the problem but, in effect, has created a new concept that can be applied to any mAB.
A third company has also showed interest. So, let's hope that with 3 companies competing that this results in a sense of urgency in these 3 companies' evaluations.
ATB