COVID-19 29Mar20

This morning, I want to get a bit more into protein crystallography, vaccines, and why lockdown until vaccines are developed just won’t work. Meantime, my usual reminder that the mainstream media coverage is detrimental to the physical and mental health of you and those you love. Don’t give in to the deliberate and willful effort to incite panic and spread false information.

Vaccines have come a long way since cowpox and Jenner, or even the work of Pasteur. Part of that advancement is that we now have ways of studying the microbes down to a level where you can see the individual atoms that make up the subject of interest.

Proteins are the building blocks of life. In the case of some microbes (bacteria and viruses), they can be described as the building blocks of death. Understanding the structure of any protein helps scientists figure out what it does and how it does it.

One way to do so that I am most familiar with is protein crystallography. In simplest terms, you take a protein and grow a crystallized version of it. In most cases, there are several forms that can grow out of any single protein, so you have to isolate the particular structure that is needed. The crystals are usually grown in a drop of liquid that contains the protein, growth medium, and other factors related to the crystallization.

Once you have the crystal, you stabilize it and put it in the path of a “bright” (powerful) X-ray source and use sensors to record how the beam penetrates, doesn’t penetrate, or scatters. With a crystal of sufficient size, you can literally map out the physical structure down to the placement of the individual atoms. This data is then converted into a visual image of the protein in question.

Some of that imagery is quite spectacular. When I worked for NASA both times, I worked with the staff at the UAB Center for Macromolecular crystallography. At that center, they could and did grow crystals, on the ground and in space (which offers quite a few advantages, and analyze them. They had a system that could use that data to create a 3-D image that allowed you to examine the structure in detail, even rotate or isolate sections at need. With that information, treatments could be developed that would bind only with the desired target, allowing drugs to be developed that were more efficient and had fewer (or almost no) side effects.

What does this have to do with vaccines? For modern vaccines, everything.

To design a modern vaccine, you have to understand the structure of the organism against which you are vaccinating. First, all organisms mutate over time. Certain structures, however, have to remain the same or the organism is no longer viable and dies off. If you can identify those structures that can’t really change, you can design either a treatment that binds to that site; or, you can develop a vaccine that does the same thing to prevent it. For example, HIV had what was considered a high mutation rate which hampered development of vaccines. I know of at least one experiment that flew on the Shuttle to grow crystals to help identify the areas that could not change in order to develop a vaccine. Sadly, I don’t remember that effort being as successful as hoped. My memory is fuzzy, but I seem to recall that in the time available the crystals could not be grown to a useful size; but, again, my memory is fuzzy.

Again, understanding the structure is critical, as in many cases, you only want certain antigens or even a single antigen (a substance that produces an immune response by the body) to teach the body what it needs to fight against. When the vaccine is given, the antigen(s) in it cause the body to think it is being invaded and to develop an immune response that attacks the full/real pathogen when it enters the body.

Protein crystallography is one means of identifying the structure of a pathogen such as COVID-19. I know of one effort to use protein crystallography on COVID-19, and suspect there are more. So, between protein crystallography and other methods, targets for treatment and vaccine development can and have been identified.

For those wanting something more than this rather simplified explanation, may I suggest this paper, this paper, this paper, and this paper as starting points.

Now, we get to actual vaccine production. Despite the problems with the accuracy of information from China, we have genetic and structural information that identifies target antigens for vaccine development. These have to be isolated, grown in the laboratory, and then normally they would be tested on animals and then humans. The normal FDA approval process for drugs and vaccines has be circumvented, and the first of what will likely be several vaccines is now in human testing. Even with the shortened process, that still takes time, as in weeks to months to see how it works. If it does work and does not need refinement (this is where later vaccines will have an advantage), we can start giving it out, right?


Going from creating what could be as little as a few ounces needed for initial development and testing, you now have to manufacture hundreds, or even thousands, of gallons of a product that requires multiple stages to create while ensuring the highest possible quality. Even variations of the antigen being used have to be removed in many/most cases. Ramping up production will be a time consuming process. Again, we are talking months even with best case on development, production, and regulatory approval. In short, I think we are looking at somewhere between six to ten months in a best case scenario. I hope I’m wrong, but as noted before, you always plan for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes.

Six to ten months in national lockdown is not going to work. The disaster that would be for the economy, not to mention to civil liberties, can’t be overstated. I can’t think of any rational person of any political persuasion who will stand for that.

Now, the above is greatly simplified. As above, if you want to know more about modern vaccine production methods, I recommend you start with this, with this, with this, this paper is a must read, this paper, and this paper. If you read those, I think you will better understand how miraculous both the current technology for studying things like COVID-19 is and the breathtaking pace shown in getting the first human trial underway. It literally could not have been done twenty years ago in my opinion, and quite possible even as little as ten years ago.

For those who want to know more about the work done at the UAB Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, I commend to you both what may still be available through NASA relating to Shuttle missions, and the papers and talks by Dr. Lawrence DeLucas, Charles Bugg, et al. For those who want to know more about the efforts to prevent paralysis from spinal cord injuries mentioned yesterday, you should look to the works of Borgens, Shi, et al at Purdue University.

Thus concludes today’s lecture. Yes, I have simplified things so that they are accurate though not necessarily precise. I wanted it on a level that could be widely understood. Hence the links to all the papers for those who want it in greater detail and precision.

Since the media isn’t going to say it, once again, COVID-19 is not Capt. Tripps. It is not the flu. Chill, distance, and use good hygiene. STOP THE PANIC!

Also, a reminder once again: if you are sick or think you are sick, DO NOT GO TO WORK OR TO VISIT PEOPLE. Stay the frack home. Don’t be Stupid, go to work/out, and insist on getting up close and personal to everyone you meet. Yes, Stupid is capitalized as I work with Stupid, who did just that. Don’t be Stupid.

If my posts are enjoyable, helpful, or otherwise a benefit, please consider hitting the tip jar. Any help is very much appreciated, especially as I’m now off for at least two weeks without pay.

•My Amazon Wishlist

As always:




Avoid travel if at all possible. If you have to travel, or go out for any reason, use lots of hand sanitizer and go to full flu protocols. If you have to use a public restroom, take full precautions including using paper towels and such to handle faucets, doors,etc.  Believe it or not, this was highly recommended before now, and major grocery chains have long told employees to use those practices to avoid getting or spreading colds, flu, etc.  Not many actually do it, but…  



Good Sources Of Information On COVID-19

Instapundit (no longer doing roundups, but great articles from Glenn and his team)

South China Morning Post (decent, some salt may be needed)

Business Insider (decent, even if they did fall for some lies about Trump)

New England Journal of Medicine

Additional link to Johns Hopkins

More to come

Local Independent Businesses That Need Your Support

Oaken Barrel (Twitter at @OakenBarrel)


Greek Islands

Bynum’s Steak House

Schoolhouse 7 Cafe

WIBC’s list of local

More to come

Other COVID19/COVID-19/2019-nCoV articles:

COVID-19 28Mar20

COVID-19 27Mar20

COVID-19 26Mar20

COVID-19 25Mar20

COVID-19 24Mar20

COVID-19 23Mar20

COVID-19 22Mar20

COVID-19 21Mar20

COVID-19 20Mar20

COVID-19 19Mar20

COVID-19 18Mar20

COVID-19 17Mar20

COVID-19 16Mar20

COVID-19 15Mar20

COVID-19 14Mar20


COVID-19 12Mar20

COVID-19 11Mar20

COVID-19 10Mar20

COVID-19 9Mar20 The Game Of Loads And Vectors

COVID-19 8Mar20



COVID-19 6Mar20

COVID-19 5Mar20

COVID-19 4Mar20

COVID-19 3Mar20

COVID-19 What Am I Doing?

COVID-19 2Mar20

COVID-19 1Mar20

COVID-19 29Feb20

Quick Additional Thoughts On The Bureaucracy

Panic Is Off And Running

COVID-19 28Feb20 Reasons To Hope, Reasons To Fear

COVID-19 A Plea To The Politicians (And Media)

COVID-19 27Feb20

COVID-19 Breaking A Chain?

COVID-19 26Feb20

COVID19 The Situation In China Gets Even Weirder

COVID19 25Feb20

COVID19 24Feb20 Raising DEFCON

COVID19 23Feb20

COVID19 22Feb20

COVID19 21Feb20: Just Look At The Blooms Dear

COVID19 Update 20Feb20

COVID19 Update

Update & Quick Thoughts On Preparedness

Expansion On A Theme

Well Maybe I Was Wrong

Some Quick Thoughts On Coronavirus 2019-nCoV

Why Should You Be Prepared?

Keeping Alert

Coronavirus And Practical Preparedness

2 thoughts on “COVID-19 29Mar20”

Comments are closed.