Brendan Stautberg
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Brendan Stautberg
@bstaut.bsky.social
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Attorney. Democracy + livable cities + guitars + D&D enjoyer. Alum GW Law/Pitt. Chesco/PGH/DC/VA. No rights without remedies. he/him
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Reposted by Brendan Stautberg
ryanlcooper.com
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Within a day after Graham and McLellan downloaded the sequence for SARS-CoV-2, they had designed the modified proteins. The key accelerating factor was that they already knew how to alter the spike proteins of other coronaviruses. On January 13th, they turned their scheme over to Moderna, for manufacturing. Six weeks later, Moderna began shipping vials of vaccine for clinical trials. The development process was “an all-time record,” Graham told me. Typically, it takes years, if not decades, to go from formulating a vaccine to making a product ready to be tested: the process privileges safety and cost over speed. Graham had to make several crucial decisions while designing the vaccine, including where to start encoding the spike-protein sequence on the messenger RNA. Making bad choices could render the vaccine less effective—or worthless. He solicited advice from colleagues. Everyone said that the final decisions were up to him—nobody had more experience in designing vaccines. He made his choices. Then, after Moderna had already begun the manufacturing process, the company sent back some preliminary data that made him fear he’d botched the job. Graham panicked. Given his usual composure, Cynthia, his wife, was alarmed. “It was a crisis of confidence that I just never see in him,” she said. So much depended on the prompt development of a safe and effective vaccine. Graham’s lab was off to a fast start. If his vaccine worked, millions of lives might be spared. If it failed or was delayed, it would be Graham’s fault. After the vaccine was tested in animals, it became clear that Graham’s design choices had been sound. The first human trial began on March 16th. A week later, Moderna began scaling up production to a million doses per month.
January 23, 2025 at 3:53 AM
bstaut.bsky.social
It’s also so that even the applicants don’t necessarily know what agency they’ve applied for/who is adjudicating their clearance until they’re approved.
July 26, 2023 at 5:40 PM