The Ribo-Club Conference and RNA Canada

The Good, the Bad, and the (Very) Ugly

Well, the week long conference ended yesterday afternoon, and my brain is still trying to put itself back together again after listening to stuff I in which I had little background. However, I did manage to understand quite a bit, considering. And many young grad students assured me, they felt exactly the same way. I am going to try to give an overview of what I saw and felt at this conference. I attended to gain more insight and knowledge and understand the driving forces behind the mRNA vaccines as well as other RNA therapies. I will probably write another substack on specific topics and my conversations with Health Canada etc.

The Good

Oh my, the sweet young grad students. So open, so welcoming so generous. A group of them took me under their wing. My story was that at the start of Covid I was very ill (true) and to keep my mind occupyed I read and read about RNA and papers and thought I could learn a bit more and leverage another career as a consultant bridging the pharmaceutical care with RNA. More or less true as a matter of fact. They thought I was fabulous and inspiring (cough, cough). Did I say they were sweet?

THe venue was good, the food was good and plentiful, and there were many speakers from over the world, including Nobel Laureates and Gairdener winners. There very few vendors there, compared to medical and pharmacy meetings. Mostly vendors offering sequencing and reagents and enzymes.

Very few people I met were studying mRNA per se. There were very few posters on mRNA vaccines. There was very little on gene editing, in fact, my new young grad friend who was using CRISPR Cas-9 as a diagnositic type tool, pointed me to the huge issues with PRIME editing in this preprint which causes quite a stir. CRISPR-Cas9 induced large deletions in cancer cell lines, stem cells and T cells. Holy Toledo. He thinks gene editing is very unlikely in the near to medium future.

Instead there was much talk about aptamers, other kinds of RNA like siRNA (as in Onpattro), non-coding RNA and then antisense oglionucleotides and a new product called Spinraza. Spinraza is a very interesting gene therapy product that has had some marvelous success, and that everyone there wanted to aspire to. More on that later, though my new friends noted that no one knows how this small RNA sequence gets into the cell since there are no LNPs or carrier of any kind. I then wondered, maybe that is why it is working well. Hmmmm.

I was there to learn and to present my poster which had the issues regarding the mRNA vaccines, specifically,

1. transcription errors

2. dsRNA

3. dsDNA and the SV40 promoter

4. lipid adducts and other lipid issues

5. translation errors and frameshifting

I had a couple of good interactions regarding my poster but will include them below.

The Bad

I was quite anxious about presenting my poster on Tuesday, but as it was I was mostly ignored, lol. I was Poster #214 and not in the running for a competition and had to tape my poster to the wall with about 20 others. However, I was very close to a door and therefore could see people glance and walk by. Here are a few highlights.

The doctor

This was one of my first encounters. I gave her my spiel and she got more and more uncomfortable, crossed her arms and as I finished she shouted, “what would YOU have done? There was a PANDEMIC!!” She knew what the SV40 promoter meant, the frameshifting etc. If I would have said IVM or HCQ it would have been over, so I said first I would have just given it to the highest risk patients, stop after 3 months and do a DMSB (data safety monitoring board) type of check then adjust accordingly. And I would not have gotten rid of the placebo group. She was so upset she was visibly shaking and had to leave the venue to calm down. She never looked at me for the rest of the conference.

The (semi-)belligerent grad student(s)

I had a few of them who either grunted when I went through my spiel, and left. One decided to challenge every one of my findings. How do you know the dsRNA is causing problems? So what about the dsDNA, it will just be broken down by nucleases. When I reminded him, the DNA was in the cytosol he crossed his arms glared at me and left. Most people would stand away like I was some kind of bomb ready to detonate. Many did not believe me really about the SV40 promoter contamination, but many had heard of the paper by Mulroney on frameshifting because it was in Nature. “Oh, its not my area of expertise so I’m not sure what to think of it.” I reminded them of folding errors and glycosolation issues that cannot be known with mRNA. Some got uncomfortable, a few just looked blankly.

The sweet young thing

I had a beautiful sweet young grad student patiently listen to all my spiel with great attention. Then she was silent a moment or two. “If what you say is true, it was still worth it. And I would do it again.” Her chin came up. “Because it was a pandemic. For science.” I stared at her. She said, “I was in Brazil. People were dying. The vaccine was hope.” And then she walked away. There were a few others similar to this.

The experienced researcher

Most stayed away of course. But I had an older researcher, about my age who had suspected there were issues. He said he couldn’t believe they were making 13kg of mRNA!! How was that possible? He was very quiet but listened to my poster at the very end when there were few people around. He believed me about the SV40 promoter and knew full well the implications of frameshifting. He said what would happen if this gets out. I said at some point it will, and I am here to basically warn people. He kept shaking his head. He took my handout and said, I can’t talk about this publicly but I will bring it back to my lab and discuss privately there. I thanked him.

The vaccine injured researcher

A lovely man. His poster was right beside mine and garnered a lot of attention (nothing on mRNA, some kind of splicing stuff dont ask me I didnt understand it, lol) I noticed he had Bell’s Palsy. Yup, occurred right after his second shot. His doc said it was Covid, nothing to do and go get physio. Of course it was the vaccine. He was pretty bitter. I went through my spiel. Gave him info on react19. He asked why I am doing this. I said because of people like him, and because it was the right thing to do. We sat together for the gala and talked about vaccines and how the mRNA are bound to fail, even if they clean things up. They will need an adjuvant so I told him what was coming. He is refusing vaccines for his 2 year old.

The LNP Researcher

I didn’t have to explain anything. I think he knew. He’s working on the LNPs. Think they will do better without DSPC or the helper lipid. Less adverse events. I asked about CARPA. He knew what it was!!! Yes, he said, good idea. I will do the testing. Asked about endosomal escape. And whether sitting in the lysosomes was similar to lysosomal storage disorders. He said he thinks so too. No mRNA he said under his breath. No he wants a better lipid for the siRNAs, which does have promise for some diseases. He gave me his card. I learned later he graduated from the best lab in the US.

The Ugly

Where do I start?

That RNA are TOOLs and that it is a TECHNOLOGY. I summarize some of the talks of the famous researchers invited to talk.

Philip Sharp, the Nobel Laureate talked about the genetic burden in the population (which obviously needs “fixing). He says we will invent the future and fulfill the promise of precision medicine. RNA as information, maybe as a program? Talked about RNA as a therapeutic and about how you can bypass drug development woes as you can design the target. mRNA vaccines a success, are rapidly adaptable and last only a short period of time (!!!!!).

Cullis talked about how charged lipids in nature were ALWAYS toxic, but how he solved the problem by making them neutral or positively charged. They’re relatively non-toxic, scalable and reproducible. How they are going to be used in the future, including in the brain. For cancer vaccines, in-vivo CAR-T therapies and for replacing tumor repressor genes. (DOES HE KNOW???!!) And how the vaccine saved 14 million lives etc etc

Adrian Krainer is the only one who did not mention mRNA vaccines. Not once. Well maybe because he invented Spinraza which is working and is impressive so far.

There was talk about how economical it was to performm genomic screening for everyone, which means we can drop the genetic disease rate. Earlier therapeutics, maybe even in utero? Holy Toledo.

Lot of talk about “vaccine hesitancy” and the role of researchers to do their part on sharing the knowledge and teach on mRNA vaccines.

Then there was Thomas Cech, the Nobel Laureate for Chemistry 1989. Wants scientists to explain to the general public without jargon and that we are entering the 21st century, the age of RNA (vs DNA so last century…). LNPs encapsulates same size as SARS-CoV2 and that mRNA is a drug and lets the the body do the heavy lifting. He LOVES mRNA. It is

1. adaptable

2. decreased mortality to Covid

3. saved a million chicken eggs (this is progresssss?????)

4. but doesnt prevent infection

However, the future of RNA is better more effective flu and other vaccines, personalized cancer vaccines, and therapeutic proteins.

Then he talked about non-coding RNA. OK, now it is getting outright scary.

Non-coding RNAs

1. act as catalysts

2. can control action of DNA

3. act on telemores THEREFORE WE CAN CONSIDER IMMORTALITY IS WITHIN OUR GRASP

So that is what this is all about. These materialists who do not think we have intrinsic value or dignity. They want immortality and think they can acheive it with noncoding RNAs. And that almost all of us have a genetic problem that needs “fixing.” Gah.

Kevin McKernan warned me about Cech. and Sharp.

Holy Toledo. I am still processing all this. More later.

Thanks for reading. And pray the rosary. October 7th (Our Lady of the Victory)