"The medication works in two ways: First, it interrupts viral replication by preventing HIV from reaching the nucleus of an infected cell, which then blocks reproduction.
The second mechanism is for cases in which integration of the HIV genome has already occurred. In this instance, lenacapavir interferes with production of viral progeny, “making them defective so that they are not able to infect other cells.” Therefore, it works in both early and late stages of the HIV life cycle to disrupt replication."
Since the drug works in two ways, it would be difficult for the virus to adapt. Similarly to how the current commonly prescribed PrEP regimen (Descovy or Truvada) is two different drugs in one pill and has not lead to any significant rise in resistance.
Yes that is correct, it's pretty easy to create escape variants in the lab. I don't think people should be doing it with virus like HIV and SARS, but they do.
I'm surprised people are still making that argument even after the pandemic showed us the risk is nowhere near worth the reward. Regardless you need to create a vaccine for the discovered virus (which can take less than a week, as was the case with covid). And then you still need to go through months of human trials.
I was hoping we were done risking starting pandemics by purposefully creating new deadly viruses.
Agreed. Making super viruses to show what could possibly happen, however unlikely, is the epitome of hubris. But boy is it a great to get funding.
I do wonder what the calculus is when comparing the chance nature could mutate and successfully introduce itself to the human population vs the chance of it escaping a lab after being created by humans to study gain of function, etc.
the jury is still out on whether COVID originated from a lab. it seems very possible, but there is still little evidence that proves it was created in a lab.
Well, we do know COVID did leak from a lab in China at least one time: in 2021, a researcher in Taiwan was bitten by an infected mouse and contracted the disease.
Edit: My bad, as far as public knowledge goes, coronavirus leaked three times in China (SARS coronavirus 2x, COVID 1x), and once in Singapore.
As for Wuhan in November 2019, the Chinese government took several actions at that time which you would expect to be taken in response to a biosecurity incident: visits from biosecurity officials, remedial biosecurity training, and (coincidentally) government simultaneously began work on a COVID vaccine.
Only circumstantial evidence, though... so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public”
Isn't there a big difference between "designed" and "developed"? For instance the whole testing phase?
Which doesn't mean it is not impressively fast, but still it's not done in a week. Plus testing the covid vaccines was quick because there were many many people to participate in the tests.
And where comes the human part in the equation? That some people think they are so smart no mistake can ever occur, like viruses escaping into the wild, proofs their lack of understanding.
HIV has a crazy high mutation rate, way larger than other viruses like SARS-COV-2 or the influenza virus. In an infected untreated human, you have at least one copy of the HIV virus produced for each base pair mutation within a day or so. In other words, if there is a single base pair mutation that makes HIV resistant to a single drug, HIV will adapt quickly. So that's why they quickly discovered to do double therapy, and nowadays one does triple therapy even, so that a virus has to randomly become resistant to three drugs at the same time.
this could happen, but hiv isn't contagious like the flu so even if there'll be an individual with such a strain - how likely it'll pass to others?
Also, this drug limits replication, meaning there'll be less and less mutations over time compared to a fully spread virus
"The medication works in two ways: First, it interrupts viral replication by preventing HIV from reaching the nucleus of an infected cell, which then blocks reproduction.
The second mechanism is for cases in which integration of the HIV genome has already occurred. In this instance, lenacapavir interferes with production of viral progeny, “making them defective so that they are not able to infect other cells.” Therefore, it works in both early and late stages of the HIV life cycle to disrupt replication."
Since the drug works in two ways, it would be difficult for the virus to adapt. Similarly to how the current commonly prescribed PrEP regimen (Descovy or Truvada) is two different drugs in one pill and has not lead to any significant rise in resistance.