Ezra writes:

Hello TWiV team!

I come to you with a veterinary question.

I recently learned that the rabies vaccine for dogs is not approved for use in other canines.

From the American Veterinary Medical Association: 

“Data on the pathogenesis of rabies in canine hybrids are insufficient to develop evidence- based quarantine policies for these animals. Consequently, public health officials may not permit 10-day post-bite quarantine of canine hybrids after they bite a person and may instead require euthanasia and rabies testing. Likewise, public health officials may require euthanasia of canine hybrids if they are exposed to a rabid or potentially rabid animal, regardless of whether they have been previously vaccinated with a rabies vaccine labeled for domestic dogs.”

I’m curious if there’s evidence that wolves and dogs have differences in their immune systems and/or in how rabies infection affects them. Ultimately dogs, wolf-dogs, and wolves are all the same species, it seems counterintuitive to me that a vaccine shown to work in dogs would not work in wolf-dogs.

At the same time, I understand that rabies is not a disease to take risks with, so without specific research into wolf-dogs we shouldn’t just assume the vaccine will be equally effective.

Do you have any thoughts or insight?

Thank you!

Ezra

Bill writes:

Dear TWiV gang,

Thank you for covering our HBV DMS paper on TWiV! You all did a great job highlighting the key points in an accessible way. HBV is an excellent virus to nerd out on for anyone interested in molecular biology! Thank you for putting it on people’s radar.

All the best,

Bill Schneider (long-time TWiV fan)

Adrian writes:

Hello TWiV,

I am a graduate student taking a virology course at Caltech (Bi115) and I had a question regarding the Lancet paper discussed in TWiV episode 1115 on May 19, 2024. The paper was regarding a self-replicating mRNA vaccine, and my question is about the potential promiscuity of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRp) and the effects of vaccinating someone with a concomitant viral illness. For example, many vaccines are safe to receive while also sick with a cold or some other mild illness (including the current mRNA vaccines). Could the RdRp from a self-replicating mRNA vaccine be used by an already-present RNA virus to replicate its genome? Would that potentially pose a risk to vaccinating individuals who are sick?

Thank you,

Adrian

Ziyi writes:

Hello TWiV,

My name is Ziyi, and I’m a student from Caltech that is currently taking a virology class Bi115. 

I have a question about COVID-19 self-amplifying mRNA vaccine you mentioned in episode 1115. Since self-assembly mRNA vaccine will encode RdRp for the spike protein mRNA, if a patient that just get infected by SARS-CoV-2 but doesn’t have symptoms get the injection of self-amplifying mRNA vaccine, will that cause the virus to spread even faster and lead to worse symptoms? 

The way I’m thinking about it is that RdRp will increase the rate of the spike protein expression, and if the cell is already infected by SARS-CoV-2 and the expression of spike protein is the rate limiting step, then faster spike protein production will lead to faster maturation of the virus and thus faster spreading.

Best,

Ziyi

Abdulaziz writes:

Biomedical Scientist Dr. Andrea Love Answers Pseudoscience Questions From Twitter in an informative and enjoyable way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj71yGp-8WM 

–  Abdulaziz