YouSaid · the spoken record

Vincent Racaniello

lines on the record: 239
first: 2021-09-01
most recent: 2021-09-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Could do that too. But I have to say the other issue is this Molnu Pyrivir is a drug in phase three now. It's an oral antiviral that looks good We go ahead with just one, we're going to get resistance within a few months and it will be useless. We need to have at least two or three drugs that we can give in combinations. And we know that because that's what took care of HIV. That's what took care of HCV, hepatitis C virus. It really reduces the emergence of resistance.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Drops really quickly. So that's the reason a lot of these antivirals failed because they were tested in hospitalized patients and we have nothing but Remdesivir now, unfortunately. So it was the wrong approach. We should have been giving it to people who just tested positive from the start.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get a PCR in 15 minutes. I'm positive. Take a pill, boom, that's going to inhibit it. If you wait till you can't breathe, and that's why the monoclonals even don't work if you're in hospital that well, because it's too late and that the approach now is if you're in a high risk group, if you're over 65, if you are obese or have diabetes or any other comorbidities, your first sign of a scratchy throat positive, you get monoclonals. Then they might help you. But if you wait till you go in a hospital, it's too late because the viral curve drops. After that first symptom, within three days, you're no longer shedding enough virus to transmit.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're mildly ill, you're never going to go to your doctor and ask for an antiviral. The problem is when you can't breathe, it's no longer a viral issue. It is now an inflammatory issue and no antiviral in the world is going to help you. So that's why Rem Desivir doesn't work very well, because it's mainly given intravenously to people who go in a hospital. If you get Ivermectin in the hospital, it's not going to do anything for reducing virus because by that time you have very little virus to begin with. You have an inflammatory problem that you need to treat in other ways. So this is why a lot of the antivirals failed because they used too late. What you need. Is a pill you take on that first positive test when you have a scratchy throat.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that in many other drugs repurposed drugs. A lot of HIV antivirals were tried. I think the problem with hydroxyx, I think hydroxychloroquine influenced the Ivermectin narrative, right? People thought that data was being hidden about hydroxychloroquine. So they say, well, they must be doing the same thing with Iveramexin. But with hydroxychloroquine, it just scientifically could not work as an antiviral. The other problem that is more broad that is important to point out is that When you have COVID and you need an antivirus, it's usually because you can't breathe and you go in a hospital.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hydroxychloroquine inhibits that, and that's why it inhibits in kidney cells and culture. But lung cells and respiratory cells of humans where the virus reproduces can get in two different ways. It can get in from this endocytic pathway, which is inhibited by hydroxychloroquine. Or it can get in at the cell surface, which is not inhibited by hydroxychloroquine. So when you treat patients, it has no effect in the lung because the virus can just bypass it. And all the usage initially were based on the studies done in kidney cells and culture. So that was just wrong, scientifically incorrect, yet it drove a lot of, and today many people still think they should be taking it.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, hydroxychloroquine was also shown early on to inhibit virus in cell culture. That's not surprising. Hydroxychloroquine, of course, is used for malaria, and what it does. When your cell takes up things from the plasma membrane, including viruses, it goes through a pathway called the endocytic pathway, which involves a vesicle moving through the cell. And as it moves through the cell, its pH drops. And that lets a lot of viruses out actually, and hydroxychloroquine blocks that blocks infection with a lot of viruses. So, the problem with those early studies that were published is that they were done in kidney cells and culture, where the only way the virus can get in is through the endosome.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ever mectin is very hard to synthesize. Most drugs you synthesize chemically, you devise a formulation and a synthesis and they do it, they scale it up and it's fine. Ivermectin is really hard. And so what they do instead is they take the culture of the bacterium that makes it and they grow it up and they ferment it and then they purify it. And Merck owns the bacteria. Number of years ago, two employees of Merck stole it and left the company and tried to market it and they were arrested and they got put in jail. So they protect it very carefully. So she can't just make it. If you do, it's incredibly expensive. And now India is very cheap, apparently. They use it quite liberally there. And I don't know how they're making it. Maybe they've licensed it from Merck and so forth That's why it hasn't been tested more widely, I think.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well All the money was put into vaccines, right? Very little was put into antivirals because a decision was made at a very high level, probably involving Dr. Fauci. Going to put 24 billion into vaccines, right? And I think part of the reasoning is they give you years' worth of protection, whereas an antiviral works in the have to keep dosing and so forth. But evermectin is not trivial in this. I agree it should have been tested early on. But we had a really bad experience with hydroxychloroquine, which we can. Talk about too.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he recovered. So, who's to say it was or were not Ivermectin, right? So I don't have any strong ideological opposition. I just think it should be tested for what you want to use it for. And that's being done, and I think that's fine.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A 4,000 person trial is enrolling to test in a randomly controlled trial setting, whether it works or not. There's still plenty of cases that you can do that. So you can ask whether there are any side effects. I think that's completely fine. And if it says it works, then we should use it. In the meantime, I always tell people if you want to use Ivermectin, you can do it off-label. It's FDA approved. And if your physician says, I'm going to give you this off-label, I don't have any objection. But I don't know if it's going to work. Now, a friend of ours last week in New Jersey got COVID. He went to his local hospital, and their regimen was Rem Desivir dexamethasone. Ivermecton. It's written. That's what they do for every COVID patient. They just give it to them automatically.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Question of safety, too. Right. So I think it has always been the case that it should have been properly studied, but it wasn't. There were lots of trials here and there, lots of improperly controlled trials where someone would just treat some patients and say, hey, they all did fine, but have no control arm. And there were some controlled trials, but they were very small. So right now,”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is approved. It's amazing. You can take one dose a year and be protected against river blindness in Africa, in certain parts of Africa. It's remarkably effective. And so it's quite a safe drug at the doses that are approved. Now, early last year, a study was done, I believe, in Australia, which showed in cells in the lab, if you infect with SARS-CoV-2 and put vermectin in, it would inhibit the virus production substantially. It was quite clear, right? But the concentrations they were using were rather high and could not be achieved by the approved dosing. So you would need to do a dosing study to make sure it's safe. And the reason is that I have a mechanine binds to receptors in your brain, and it can have high doses. Some people take high doses inappropriately, and they have neurological consequences.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, full disclosure. My wife worked on Ivor Mectanet Merck for 20 years. Okay, so they just want people to know, but I didn't talk to her all the time about it. And anyway, she hasn't been at Merck for a long time. As you know, Ivermectin is a very safe drug used to treat certain parasitic infections.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, well. A lot of the same issues, cognitive issues, motor issues, respiratory GI dysfunction, how long we don't know. I mean, it could end in a year. As you know, there are other post-acute infectious sequelae that we know about chronic fatigue, MECFS is thought to be a post-infectious sequel, which has gone for many decades now and many millions of people. This could be another one of those. I'm just saying it might be worth erring on the side of not letting the kids get infected.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what is the numbers now? 70,000 hospitalizations so far in kids as of last week? So yes, it's low, but. Polio was low. Polio was 20, 30,000 kids a year paralyzed. And many people have actually argued that that vaccine wasn't necessary, you know. Wasn't a substantial enough health problem”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your question is why don't we just open up? Say, here we have these vaccines if you want to protect yourself. I think it's mainly the school that's driving the whole narrative. That's my opinion.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which I would say is, as I said before, you can't say never, but we do know that long. COVID exists. We don't know for how long because we've only looked out six or eight months. We know that exists and the frequency is increasing. It certainly exists in young kids and we have no idea about long vaccine effects. So I think they have to make their decision based on that.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's going to be, it's not going to be in time for school opening that they get vaccinated. And then, I mean, I suppose the teachers are all going to be vaccinated. It makes sense for them to do that. But I'm just worried the kids are going to be transmitting it amongst them. And many states don't allow mask mandate in school. So I think that's what's driving the larger narrative in the U.S. to protect kids. It's kind of what I hear from Daniel Griffin. Increasing numbers of kids are being admitted to hospitals now because they're becoming the major unvaccinated population. They're hanging out over the summer. And that's just going to get worse in the fall. And so you could have a lot of kids with long COVID and disabled their entire lives, right?”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So here's what I think is driving. I think it's all about kids. Because they're going to go back to school in the fall, and many of them can't be vaccinated, right? If they get infected, they do have less frequency of disease, but it's not zero. They do get sick and they can have long-term consequences. And at that age, it would be a shame, right? And not even their choice. They can't decide to get vaccinated or not because they can't have access to it. So I think that's what would drive my efforts to try and get more people, at least in schools vaccinated. But I might be wrong. It may not be that.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you think we should at this point say, okay, we have vaccines? You can decide whether you take them or not. Let's move forward.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bothers me though. I mean, personally, I don't like anyone dying anywhere, and especially considering what technology we're able to muster, yet we still kill each other. It's just dichotomy to me.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think In recent history, the worst pandemic is 1918 flu. But that's mainly because we didn't know what to do. We didn't have many tools at our disposal.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the vaccine you're talking about injecting something into you, and maybe you're right that the rhetoric is like, you better take this or you're dumb, you know, is not the right approach.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would just say one more thing so. I mean, the internet is here to stay, so we're going to have to figure out how to deal with it, right? But from my perspective, I was skeptical that these mRNA vaccines, that any COVID vaccine would be ready within a year. Amazing The way I look at the mRNA vaccine as a scientist, it's gee whiz to me. It's amazing that it worked. And I think the data are great. So I want it. As a scientist, I wanted.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree. I think it's fine to question the vaccines. What I have an issue with is that many people. Put out incorrect information, and I'm not sure what their motivations are. And it's very hard to fight that because then it's my word versus theirs. And I'm happy to talk with people about any of their concerns. But if you start getting into the stuff that just isn't true, then we have a problem.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that they can barely govern. I don't think they're going to do that. But you don't have to take, unless you're a federal employee, you don't have to take a COVID vaccine.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can't there be some intermediate that works? Because. I mean, the other iss Is because a lot of funding comes from the government, so that's another confounding factor. But I really think I could make a vaccine institute that if someone didn't do well, I'd fire them. No, you're not going to stay if you can't do your job and do it well or you don't give them incentives. But it doesn't have to be the two extremes, I think. There has to be a solution that people don't have this mistrust for a company making huge profits off of a drug. But you know what? It's funny. Seems that vaccines and antivirals bear the brunt of this criticism, yet there are many other pharmaceuticals that people rely on. Of all sorts, they don't seem to question and have issues with those, and they have far more side effects than vaccines. It's a very strong.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I could set up a vaccine production institute in the US that would get the vaccines done because you just need to put money into it. That's what made these vaccines get done money. They poured billions of dollars and they got it done quickly. But if I set up a nonprofit institutes of vaccines throughout the US, staffed with really talented people pay them well, keep them motivated, you'll get your vaccines.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you know, when you brought up the for profit issue, I think that has always been an issue. I've always felt that. Having your health depend on for profit industry may not be the best solution. And I don't know how else to do it. People tell me I'm a dreamer thinking that all medicines could be non profit. I also think that the world should have one health system that takes care of everyone, right? Because there are some countries that can't and other countries have an excess like us. So I wish we could do that.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of this nature because then you can look through the data very you're going to, I mean, it require looking very carefully, but you'll see inconsistencies from one trial to another. And that may ring a bell that something's been done.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's preclinical data, which is everything that was done in the lab before this vaccine ever went into a human arm. It's all the cell culture work that we talked about a little, experiments in animals. All of that is publicly accessible. Most of it gets published. And then there's the initial drug filing, which is huge books of, you can get that and look at.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To that, I would say. All the data, as far as I know, are made public. So, you can dive into it. And I know a lot of people ask me questions, and I just say it's right here in the data. And I know a lot of people can't do that. They can't dive into it. But that's one solution for people who are able. Now, you could argue, well, maybe they've left data out. Well, then not even I can help because then they're hiding it from me too. And I think that's highly unlikely. I think for the most part, the FDA requires the release of all the clinical trial data, right?”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Getting vaccinated because I think it's very small. But I understand where people can't make that decision. And that begs the question, what would they need to make a decision? So if you're concerned about an effect in 40 years. Not going to know for 40 years”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't think that lasts till today. I think today is a different era, right? Most people don't know about those stories. I tell them to you because That's what could happen. I think it could happen today. If you look at the history of The polio vaccine. The U.S. Public Health Service wanted kids to be vaccinated. They did things that probably weren't correct to get the vaccine back online, right? But they did it and they pushed it through. So the question is, what do we do today? So I can look at. As we just said, I can look at what might happen and I can make reasonable decisions about the likelihood of them happening. And I can also say, I don't want to get COVID of any kind because I've seen how nasty it can be. And I decide I'm taking the risk, whatever small of a long-term effect, I'm going to.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have been prevented by activating it properly. I think the company just did the wrong thing. The second, we had evidence for, and we should probably have not used that vaccine any longer, but I think that destroys public confidence. Not long”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“30,000 kids a year. And so they went and took it. They took the word of the medical establishment that it was safe and it wasn't. Big letdown. Never going to forget something. Although I think a lot of people today aren't aware of that. I think that was a big problem that's everlasting. Then the attenuated vaccine that we talked about, the infectious, causing polio. Yet, parents continued to bring their kids to be vaccinated because they were said this is the right thing to do. And I have to say, I was involved in several lawsuits where parents of a kid who got paralyzed from the polio vaccine decided to sue the manufacturer and get some money for their kid. And so they got mad. And I think. You could not The first issue could have been prevented.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You won't know it's you have to make a judgment. And for a lot of people, they can't, right? Because they don't have the tools to make the judgment. I totally understand that. And we have We have let people down a few times in medicine, right? And I know two very specific examples. The first polio vaccine ever made, the SOC vaccine was released in 1955. Immediately, within months, a few hundred cases of paralysis in kids who got it because it was not properly inactivated. Now, you have to understand, parents were dying for a polio vaccine because kids were getting paralyzed every summer”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if you're concerned about long term, then you have to do a long term experiment, right? You don't see something for 50, 60 years Someone says to you, there are no long term effects of the COVID vaccines, they can't say that because they haven't done the long experiment, right? Always the possibility, but you have to weigh it. It's always there's no free lunch, right? Always a risk benefit calculation you have to make.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Doing phase one, phase two, and phase three, and increasing numbers of people and asking, what do we see? Do we have any concerns? And so now it's been in many millions of people and we don't see most of the effects you see in a vaccine, you see in the first couple of months, things like the myocarditis with some of the vaccines, the clotting issues with the astrazenica vaccine, Guillain Barret. You see those relatively quickly. And we've seen small numbers of those occur. But other things we haven't seen, and you never say never, right? Right.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they could modify it. So now it's not going to cause fusion, so that's not an issue. It's called the prefusion stabilized spike Despite when it binds ACE 2. That top falls off, and the spike and that part of the spike that causes fusion is now exposed. And that doesn't happen in this mRNA vaccine. So those are the things that could have happened, but I think they're ruled out by what we've just said. But there's no better test than putting it into people, right?”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the RNA itself is not going to be a problem, it's the protein that is. Encoded in it, right? This is a viral RNA which Has no sequence in us. So there's nothing that it could do. It's the protein that I would say you could ask, what is that going to do? And the one property we know about the spike. That it can cause fusion Cells, that's how the virus gets in in the beginning. The spike attaches to the cell. By this H2 receptor. And it causes the virus and the cell to fuse. That's how the RNA gets out of the particle.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. So it's injected deep into your deltoid muscle, your shoulder. And the idea is not to put it in a blood vessel, otherwise, it would then for sure circulate everywhere. So they go deep in a blood vessel and it's locally injected. And they did. Before this even went into people, they did experiments in mice where they gave them a thousand times higher concentrations than they would ever give to people. And then when you do that, it can go everywhere, basically. You can find this nanoparticles in every tissue of the mouse. That's at a thousand fold higher concentration, right? So I think at the levels that we're using in people, most of it's staying in the muscle. But sure, small amounts go elsewhere.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many people are afraid because it's new technology and they feel it hasn't been tested. I mean, in theory, what could go wrong? The nice thing about mRNA is that it doesn't last forever. As opposed to DNA, which doesn't last forever, but it can last a lot longer. And it could even go into your DNA, right? MRNA has a shorter lifetime. Maybe days after it's injected into your arm, then it's gone. So that's a good thing because it's not going to be around forever. That would say, okay, so it's sticking around for your lifetime is not happening. But what else could happen? Well, let's see the protein that's made, could that be an issue? And again, proteins don't last forever. They have a finite longevity in the body. And this one also lasts perhaps at the best a few weeks.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they had some idea that lipids would target this to a cell membrane. I mean, remember, there's no receptor involved. The virus has a specific protein that attaches to a receptor. Not efficient enough to just bump around and get into a cell. That's what these things are doing, and they probably optimize the lipids to get more efficient uptake. But it's not as efficient as a virus would be to get into a cell.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's greasy. Like to say, and so your cells are covered with the greasy membrane also. So when these lipid nanoparticles bump into them, they stick and they eventually get taken up and they figured this out right at the beginning. If we put RNA in a lipid nanoparticle, will it get taken up into a cell? And the answer was yes. It was just, let's try it. And it worked.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's obvious to most people, and it's worth going into because it's really interesting. I mean, first of all, they wrap the RNA in fats, in lipid membranes, right? The particular formulation they test for years to make sure it's stable, it lasts a long time after it's injected. And the two companies that make the current COVID vaccines, right, Moderna and Pfizer, they have different lipid formulations to get to the same. That's a real part of it. And it's not simple. There are quite a few different lipids that they put into this coating. And they test to see how long they protect the RNA after it's injected, say, into a mouse. How long does it last? And the way it works is, These apparently, these lipid nanoparticles, they get injected into your muscle, they bump into cells, and they get taken up. So lipid fat is sticky”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, it works as a vaccine, and people were working on this years before COVID came around. They were doing experimental mRNA vaccines, and there were a couple of companies that were working on it. And so at the beginning of 2020, they said, let's try it. And I was skeptical, frankly, because I just thought RNA would be too labile, but I was wrong.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You get protein. Those didn't work for human vaccines, and there were many HIV AIDS vaccine trials that used DNA vaccines. Didn't work. And then a number of years ago, people started thinking, how about RNA, RNA vaccines? And I first heard this. I thought, what? I've worked with RNA my whole career. It's so fragile. If you look at it the wrong way, it breaks. I mean, that's being facetious, right? But you have to be very careful because your hands are full of enzymes that will degrade RNA. So I thought, how could this possibly work injecting it into someone's eyes? It's an example of I was skeptical and I was wrong It turns out that if you modify the RNA properly and protect it in a lipid capsule,”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it can work for DNA or RNA because remember, for an RNA virus, we can make a DNA copy of it. It will still, when you put that DNA in a cell, it goes into the nucleus.”
2021-09-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #216 – Vincent Racaniello: Viruses and Vaccines · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source