Because vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine is such a real issue in the US, is there a reason that scientist don’t create new cell lines and abandon ones harvested from elective abortions many years ago? For example, creating new cell lines donated from a miscarriage?
Thank you for being a rock star and keeping us informed.
Some cell line just work really well and have been adapted to the culture conditions needed for industrial level production. Further, since these are drugs, production needs to follow GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards and part of that is using cell lines that are themselves GMP compliant and also are amenable to growing with reagents that are GMP compliant. In terms of the vaccines, there is and was certainly the time issue. Another time issue is that the specific cell lines J&J and AZ use are engineered to express the genes that have been deleted in the vectors, ie complement the missing genes. Those genes called E1 and E3 are deleted from the vector to make the vaccine unable to replicate, but replication of the vector is still needed for production so the solution is to express them in trans, ie separately in the cell line producing the vaccine vector. Deriving a new cell line and then engineering them for vaccine production is a many years long endeavor.
As for the miscarriage question, I think it rare that a miscarriage would be collected and delivered to an appropriate research facility in time to derive a cell line, seeing as most miscarriages are spontaneous. Moreover, many/most are the result of biological problems during the development of the fetus so how cells from that fetus would perform in culture is an open question. Not impossible but probably an unlikely source for a cell line. There is a line called CHO from Chinese Hamster Ovary cells that is used to produce biologic drugs, but I don't know why it isn't used here, possibly the adenoviral vectors don't replicate in non-primate cells.
This is so well done. I have patients, not many, who choose to not vaccinate based on this moral issue. May I print this and share with patients struggling to understand the science?
Thank you so much for this thorough explanation. This question isn’t specific to J&J but just in general. I have a lot of family members who are vaccine hesitant. One of the concerns I am seeing is that we don’t know “long term effects” of vaccine. IE, in five years are all the vaccinated people going to develop a third arm or whatever. Obviously this isn’t something that can be 100% known if there is some long term effect, but it also seems to me to be extremely unlikely. I was looking and maybe I missed a post you did addressing this. This concern isn’t so much the quickness with development (I feel like I know how to address that), as it is future unknowns. Is there any theoretical or scientific evidence we can point to that can tell us why we can feel confident that is extremely unlikely? My husband got his first dose eight days ago! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Also, totally personal question here. I’m pregnant (due in May!) and have been holding off on my own vaccine to see more data coming out on pregnancy, which Pfizer I know just released some great info. I’m leaning toward going ahead and doing it while pregnant and not waiting until after delivery. Do you have any reason that I would choose one vaccine over the other during pregnancy? (mRNA vs adenovirus)
Thank you again! I tell so many people about your page!!!
"The cells that carry the deleted pieces were first isolated back in the 1970s and 1980s from aborted fetal tissues. "
There's a lot to unpack here. Immortal cell lines have almost no resemblance to the original cells from which they are made. But "Joe in accounting" believes (insert head pounding, temple massaging statement here). Joe cut class in high school biology to smoke in the bathroom 😜
Can you help me explain immortal cell lines to the check out clerk at Walmart?
Because vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine is such a real issue in the US, is there a reason that scientist don’t create new cell lines and abandon ones harvested from elective abortions many years ago? For example, creating new cell lines donated from a miscarriage?
Thank you for being a rock star and keeping us informed.
that's a fantastic question! and I have no idea. I'll try and find the answer for you
Some cell line just work really well and have been adapted to the culture conditions needed for industrial level production. Further, since these are drugs, production needs to follow GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards and part of that is using cell lines that are themselves GMP compliant and also are amenable to growing with reagents that are GMP compliant. In terms of the vaccines, there is and was certainly the time issue. Another time issue is that the specific cell lines J&J and AZ use are engineered to express the genes that have been deleted in the vectors, ie complement the missing genes. Those genes called E1 and E3 are deleted from the vector to make the vaccine unable to replicate, but replication of the vector is still needed for production so the solution is to express them in trans, ie separately in the cell line producing the vaccine vector. Deriving a new cell line and then engineering them for vaccine production is a many years long endeavor.
As for the miscarriage question, I think it rare that a miscarriage would be collected and delivered to an appropriate research facility in time to derive a cell line, seeing as most miscarriages are spontaneous. Moreover, many/most are the result of biological problems during the development of the fetus so how cells from that fetus would perform in culture is an open question. Not impossible but probably an unlikely source for a cell line. There is a line called CHO from Chinese Hamster Ovary cells that is used to produce biologic drugs, but I don't know why it isn't used here, possibly the adenoviral vectors don't replicate in non-primate cells.
This is so well done. I have patients, not many, who choose to not vaccinate based on this moral issue. May I print this and share with patients struggling to understand the science?
Go for it! let me know if I can put it in a Word format for you (which may be easier to print out?)
Thank you so much for this thorough explanation. This question isn’t specific to J&J but just in general. I have a lot of family members who are vaccine hesitant. One of the concerns I am seeing is that we don’t know “long term effects” of vaccine. IE, in five years are all the vaccinated people going to develop a third arm or whatever. Obviously this isn’t something that can be 100% known if there is some long term effect, but it also seems to me to be extremely unlikely. I was looking and maybe I missed a post you did addressing this. This concern isn’t so much the quickness with development (I feel like I know how to address that), as it is future unknowns. Is there any theoretical or scientific evidence we can point to that can tell us why we can feel confident that is extremely unlikely? My husband got his first dose eight days ago! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Also, totally personal question here. I’m pregnant (due in May!) and have been holding off on my own vaccine to see more data coming out on pregnancy, which Pfizer I know just released some great info. I’m leaning toward going ahead and doing it while pregnant and not waiting until after delivery. Do you have any reason that I would choose one vaccine over the other during pregnancy? (mRNA vs adenovirus)
Thank you again! I tell so many people about your page!!!
"The cells that carry the deleted pieces were first isolated back in the 1970s and 1980s from aborted fetal tissues. "
There's a lot to unpack here. Immortal cell lines have almost no resemblance to the original cells from which they are made. But "Joe in accounting" believes (insert head pounding, temple massaging statement here). Joe cut class in high school biology to smoke in the bathroom 😜
Can you help me explain immortal cell lines to the check out clerk at Walmart?