What if instead we just identified a gene coding for an antibody that works, and directly modified your B cells to do that?
-
Show this thread
-
This turns out to be feasible using CRISPR/Cas9. You can insert a gene coding for a specific antibody region in a location that silences expression of whatever antibody the B cell previously coded for
1 reply 0 retweets 5 likesShow this thread -
The location is also relatively constant across people (contains no SNPs with >1% prevalence), so it’s a good target
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
There are some difficulties though, not the least of which is somatic hypermutation- B cells introduce random mutations to the genes encoding antibodies (in order to have the diversity the adaptive immune system is famous for)-means the engineered cells could become self-reactive
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread -
Research into suppressing somatic hypermutation in these cells would be super useful imo, interesting to see whether you could do it with another CRISPR knockout
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
Then of course there are the infamous off-target mutations in CRISPR systems. There seems to be a legion of people working on that so if it’s possible to fix I’m confident it will be
1 reply 1 retweet 4 likesShow this thread -
And finally cost- CAR-T is a similar therapeutic strategy involving custom-modifying T cells from the patient and costs about $100k
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
Replying to @The_Lagrangian
Presumably this can be brought way down if scaled up? unless someone gets in the way of that
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @Meaningness @The_Lagrangian
yeah have either of you come across estimates on the actual variable cost for these procedures? (I assume the price is mostly amortized drug portfolio r&d)
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @wminshew @Meaningness
CAR-T is very new so it is a combo amortized R&D and leveraging willingness-to-pay with principal-agent problems. Misremembered the price though, it's $500k for the drug with >$500k in expected associated costshttps://www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/cell-therapy/news/online/%7B124396e7-1b60-4cff-a404-0a2baeaf1413%7D/car-t-cell-therapy-total-cost-can-exceed-15-million-per-treatment …
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Lab techs are not expensive. The genuine cost if scaled can’t amount to much. The question is whether the system will allow that.
-
-
Scaling will help, but it will likely take some genuine technical developments to bring costs down a lot.https://www.quora.com/Is-the-cost-of-testing-approving-and-manufacturing-gene-therapy-drugs-going-down-so-that-miracle-drugs-like-Glybera-can-be-commercially-viable-soon …
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Really interesting, thank you! Geez, this made me want to immediately do 237 web searches, and then start a company
2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes - 1 more reply
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.