In the future, viruses will no longer cause disease. 🦠😷
That’s the big prediction of BaseImmune’s Ariane Gomes, who says that in the future vaccines will be so good that viruses and other pathogens will not make people sick.
We spoke with Ariane last autumn about her background as a ​​PhD in Clinical Medicine from Oxford focused on immunology and vaccine development with 11 years of experience in basic and translational medical research. She is the co-founder of Baseimmune, a company specialising in antigen discovery for vaccine development.
Listen to the full episode for more about Ariane, BaseImmune and the future of vaccine development.
00:00:01:07 - 00:00:30:09
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Crazy Intel. It's not a podcast about big ideas. I'm your host Michael stuff at an investor first minute capital. This is a bite sized episode recorded at a Founders Forum event up in Scotland. And I'm speaking to Ariana Gomez, the co-founder of Basma Soon, a company focused on immunology vaccine development. I started by asking her what was her one big crazy prediction for the future.
00:00:31:23 - 00:00:40:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, so crazy idea is that we will coexist with pathogens, with viruses, but they will no longer cause diseases and much less pandemics.
00:00:41:09 - 00:00:49:23
Speaker 3
So viruses which have played humanity for as long as they've been humanity will no longer cause diseases.
00:00:50:10 - 00:00:54:02
Speaker 2
Yes, that's very I think that's very doable. We're on the path to get that done.
00:00:54:15 - 00:01:05:10
Speaker 3
And what needs to happen. Like, what are the immediate steps in the next five, ten years before viruses no longer cause diseases? What needs to happen?
00:01:06:17 - 00:01:11:19
Speaker 2
Investment in research and vaccines. That's a really, really good way of getting there.
00:01:12:03 - 00:01:19:15
Speaker 3
And it's about is it about the speed, about which these things can be identified? Is that the point? And then vaccinated against.
00:01:19:20 - 00:01:34:23
Speaker 2
I think, yeah. It's not only that we're technologies there to detect. Now it's just a matter of deploying. The technology is to what we do with the information that we get. It's like the precision with which we designed a vaccine. That's what we're missing.
00:01:35:06 - 00:01:50:13
Speaker 3
And so what are some of the vaccines that will like? How will people how will this manifest most in people's lives like? What are the most common vaccines that will no longer be a problem like HPV or HPV?
00:01:51:03 - 00:02:25:11
Speaker 2
Soon. So the next generations it won't be a problem anymore because one, there's a new one now. It's a node virus, but it now people are hearing more about so EBV that 60% of population have in their world 100% certain regions. But AIDS is also associated with cancer, but also multiple sclerosis. So I would absolutely love to develop a vaccine against it and make sure that we never are hostage or viruses like this again so that I think that's that's what that is achievable.
00:02:26:08 - 00:02:31:00
Speaker 3
Amazing. So thanks to people like you, that might be reality.
00:02:31:11 - 00:02:33:01
Speaker 2
Yes. Doing our best.
00:02:33:16 - 00:02:41:06
Speaker 3
All right. Well, that sounds a bit crazy, but now you explain. It doesn't sound crazy at all. I believe it. All right. Thank you so much.
00:02:41:19 - 00:02:43:23
Speaker 2
Pleasure.