DeepSummary
The first segment of the podcast discusses Moderna's recent announcement of starting clinical trials for an mRNA-based flu vaccine called mRNA-1010, which utilizes the same technology as Moderna and Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines. The experts, Jorge Conde and Vineeta Agarwala, explain how this mRNA technology could lead to more effective and rapidly produced flu vaccines by allowing for better matching of the vaccine to circulating strains each year. They also discuss the potential for mRNA technology to enable combination vaccines against multiple respiratory viruses in the future.
The second segment focuses on the news that Google's DeepMind AlphaFold, an AI system for predicting protein structures, has publicly released its entire database of predicted protein structures for around 20,000 human proteins. The guest Vijay Pande highlights the significance of this open-source release, as it turns protein structure determination from an experimental process into a simple database lookup, enabling researchers and companies to rapidly build upon this data for various applications like drug design and studying diseases.
Throughout the episode, the experts provide insights into the current state and future potential of mRNA vaccine technology and AI-driven protein structure prediction, emphasizing the potential for accelerating scientific research and innovation in areas such as vaccine development, drug discovery, and understanding biological processes.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Moderna's mRNA-based flu vaccine, mRNA-1010, could lead to more effective and rapidly produced flu vaccines by allowing for better matching of the vaccine to circulating strains each year.
- mRNA technology has the potential to enable combination vaccines against multiple respiratory viruses in the future.
- Google's DeepMind AlphaFold has publicly released its entire database of predicted protein structures for around 20,000 human proteins, enabling researchers and companies to rapidly build upon this data for various applications like drug design and studying diseases.
- The open-source release of AlphaFold's protein structure data democratizes access to cutting-edge AI capabilities for biology companies without AI expertise, potentially driving innovation across the field.
- Practical challenges and regulatory hurdles may limit the full realization of mRNA technology's potential for rapidly adapting vaccines to new viral variants, despite its theoretical capabilities.
- Factors like a virus's impact on public health and disease burden will likely influence which infections are prioritized for mRNA vaccine development.
- Both mRNA vaccine technology and AI-driven protein structure prediction have the potential to accelerate scientific research and innovation in areas such as vaccine development, drug discovery, and understanding biological processes.
- While these emerging technologies hold significant promise, their impact will likely unfold over a longer timeframe, with incremental advancements and refinements occurring over the next decade or more.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “For the first time in a long time, we have a new technology which appears to be very robust, very programmable, which I think will give us the potential to develop rapidly vaccines for a wide range of viruses.“ by Jorge Conde
- “Databases are really important because what it does is that it turns what used to be an experiment into basically a lookup, a computer lookup. That's a huge thing.“ by Vijay Pande
- “And so it's sort of the, what's possible, in principle, is not always what plays out practically, because we don't know yet how to do this kind of on the fly manipulation of a product and put it through the regulatory process that would be required to do sort of boosters on the fly.“ by Vineeta Agarwala
- “It's going to be interesting to see which infections and which viruses we go after. Flu was always very high on the list, just because it actually is a virus that causes high morbidity and mortality.“ by Vineeta Agarwala
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Episode Information
16 Minutes News by a16z
Andreessen Horowitz
8/2/21