The Power Of T-Cell Immunology: Early Diagnosis, Immunotherapy, & The Future Of Global Health
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Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius podcast. My guest today is Nigel McCracken. He's the COO of Viract Biolabs. We're going to talk about T-cells in our bodies, some of the dysfunction that occurs with them, and some of the conditions that are associated with them. So, Nigel, welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you.

very nice to be here. If you would, just tell me a brief background on yourself and then tell me about Virex. Yes, no problem at all. I'm Scottish, currently live in Scotland at this moment in time. Background, I studied biochemistry pharmacology at university, then did a PhD in drug metabolism and then later did a master's in clinical pharmacology. So I sort of classed myself as a pharmacologist, a clinical pharmacologist. I

Basically worked in drug development for 30 years, worked for some big pharma as well as biotech and lots of different indications from infectious disease to oncology to respiratory, both in the US as well as in different places in Europe. So I sort of count myself as a drug developer per se who loves just research and just loves trying to make a difference.

in people's lives well very good so what kind of work are you doing at virex talks about t-cell problems let's go into that yeah no it's so as i mentioned i've worked in drug development for 30 years and uh mostly running translational medicine groups you know where we're obviously taking basic science and where we're developing me out into sort of a clinical manifestations now i

I think when you work in things, you know, in indications like oncology or infectious disease, one thing you realise that the most important thing is early diagnosis. So after about, you know, after about 30 years of sort of doing that and developing drugs within those areas, I took up this sort of new role about a year and a half ago.

specifically around developing diagnostics for early detection and particularly what you were talking about at this moment in time, looking around the immune system or the adaptive immune system and dysfunction. Can we actually develop some tests to help monitor the immune system and with the plan to sort of help people?

because we know something like the immune system. We know about chronic, we know about inflammation. Inflammation is something that you get if you have, say, a bacterial infection or virus where after about 48 hours you get a fever. Your body basically creates an environment which is, you know, where you've got a fever, you've got chronic inflammation and then it helps to either remove that infection

or that sort of virus. Now, that's a good thing, but you don't want it to hang about. And certainly, you know, when we talk about dysfunction of the immune system, it's when your immune system is not working properly either to clear a virus or an infection. And in doing so, it's causing a longer term problem. I just read a little bit about the complementary system. I've never heard anyone really speak about it. Does that come up in your work at all? And how does that interact with the immune system? Yeah.

Just think about the immune system. You've got your innate immune system. You've got your adaptive immune system. Your innate immune system is things like your mast cells, your neutrophils. You know, when you cut yourself, you know, the repair mechanism, you know, so there's sort of two parts. There's a very sort of general sort of system that really just basically triggers the immune system to, you know, fix the problem. It could be a wound. It could be

a slight infection when it becomes a bit of a problem and you need something a little bit more specific then the adaptive immune system kicks in and this is where you you've got b cells that create antigens and antibodies against specific virus and you've got specifically t cells and t cells are your cytotoxic cells that basically tend to kill things and whatever you know and this is

What we're trying to do, I guess, certainly at Virex Biolabs is around T-cell diagnostics, either trying to identify potential dysfunctions within that sort of system and relate that to specific indications. So what are the typical role of T-cells in an infection? Right. So usually what happens when you get an infection is

If it's cleared, the innate system would usually sort of deal with it initially. Normally, if you say that you get a virus or something like that, you'll tend to find, say, after 48 hours, you get a fever.

And that's where your adaptive immune system kicks in. And what it does is the B cells basically create antigens and antibodies specifically against the virus to neutralize it. But it also triggers T cells. And T cells, I mentioned to you before, are specifically there to try and kill the virus or

when usually what happens there is the T cells basically get things like cytokines and chemokines and it creates an environment basically that is sort of toxic to that virus and with the intention to get rid of the virus or the bacterial infection. Now usually nine times out of ten it usually sort of works. Obviously there are instances where that can be a problem and I think if we look back to the

pandemic certainly with the SARS-CoV a lot of you will have heard of this term called cytokine storm you know where the immune system basically got to the point where it was actually causing problems to the actual person itself you know actually destroying the organs and whatever you know and they're causing real problems for people actually who got severe SARS-CoV infection so I

I think when we talk about adaptive immune system in T cells, it's a very specific response that the body actually has to

Evoke to get rid of the actual virus itself and as well as that when you do get exposed to a virus It's you get these memory T cells as well. And this is what we're sort of dealing with So again, usually what happens you have these memory T cells that are actually formed or these memory cells that when you come up and you encounter the virus again, then your immune system is very quick to

to act on that so the response is a lot quicker and you maybe don't actually have the same problems that you had before. So when you think about something like a vaccination that people get for different viruses and whether that be something like RSD or SARS-CoV, then usually what that is, it's a small part of the virus. That virus creates antigens and antibodies. Those antibodies then create

an immune response. So, and memory T cell response specifically to that. So when you are exposed to that virus later on, your immune system knows about it and then it can actually have a direct effect specifically on that and actually deal with it quickly. All right. So the T cells, they're part of the adaptive immune system, if you're right. And then, so what are they looking for in particular when they're, like, how do they find and assess and capture virions? Do they look for them on the, once they're attached to like the cell membrane? Yeah.

one of our cells are they free floating like how do they find them yeah i mean the so the t cells the b cells and t cells the t cells come from the thymus and whatever you know so they're generated as and when they're needed you don't want them hanging about all the time and whatever you know so you you want them to directed to a specific problem and so generally what happens when you are exposed to let's just use sars-cov-2 you're exposed to again your memory t cells basically remember that

And then basically your T cells basically are generated in your body to remove the virus or the problem from there sort of thing. So that's generally how it works. You don't want them floating about all over the time, you know, because they can cause problems, you know, specifically if there's too many of them. Okay. So what, you know, some of the drugs or therapies you've developed,

Do they spare the T cells and B cells or do they inform them with, you know, I guess I'm not clear in the method of action of some of the drugs that you produce. Right. So obviously, as part of the diet, we're not actually producing drugs, you know, with diagnosis, we're producing tests. So what we're doing, you know, certainly Viroc Biolab,

is we're actually producing a specific test to look at a person's immune system to see if it's dysfunctional. The problem is when something's dysfunctional, just to give you an example, if, for instance, there is continual stimulation, you're continually exposed to a virus, then what happens is because you create antigens, basically your body is completely... the levels of T cells in your body...

are just turned on all the time and they're activated all the time. Now, again, that can cause a big problem. So when we think about something like T-cell dysfunction or T-cell exhaustion or whatever, you know, it's because the T-cells are basically switched on all the time. And what the body's doing is it's saying, right, look, I can get rid of this virus. I'm just going to keep the level

I'm just going to keep these level of T cell activation at a certain level so I don't destroy my own internal organs or whatever you're with, a cytokine storm. But the problem with that, it causes a knock-on effect and that knock-on effect is usually a bit of chronic inflammation. And we know that chronic inflammation itself is not necessarily a good thing because that can cause things like oxidative stress. And we know that oxidative stress is the sort of thing that ages us

It causes problems in our tissues. It can also cause dysfunction of our mitochondria. And our mitochondria is our energy source. So again, a lot of people who get these post-viral syndromes, where the immune systems are continually activated, tend to have symptoms like chronic fatigue. And we've also heard about cognitive functions, you know, problems around brain fog.

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Visit FindingGeniusPodcast.com and click support us today. Now back to the show. Why do those things happen you think? It is because of general inflammation that's not getting removed. It's oxidative stress. Oxidative stress by itself is not a good thing. I mean I mentioned to you before I worked in oncology and

You know, in oncology, a lot of the drugs that certainly have been developed over the last number of years, you know, we hear about immunotherapies. And immunotherapies are basically targeting the immune system. You know, because I always wondered when I was doing drug development, you know, why does somebody, you know, who might, you know,

smoke a lot and whatever, you know, don't get any cancers. And then some people do. You know, you can be extremely unlucky. You can maybe have some mutations, but it may well be that your immune system is just very efficient at removing the problem. And when we think about the adaptive immune system and the immune system in general, it isn't removed, whether it's a virus, whether it's potentially a cancer, you know, or a bacterial infection and stuff and things like that. If you've got an efficient immune system and it's removing that

it's removing the problem. Now, from an oncology point of view, we know about T-cell exhaustion because after a while, if you've got the misfortune of actually having a cancer or a tumor and stuff like that, you hear about these things like tumor microenvironments where this environment is created and whatever that switches off the immune system that basically starts to cause this T-cell exhaustion. And when the T-cells are exhausted,

or whether they're dysfunctional, they stop working properly. Aye, they stop clearing the problem. Whether that's a tumor or a cancer cell...

or whether it's an infection or a virus. And so it's a very similar thing. It's the same targets. You know, in oncology, you know, we hear about, you know, PD-1 and LAG-3 and TIGID. And, you know, these are all the targets that immunotherapies go after because they want to reduce those expressions to reinvigorate the actual immune system to fight the cancers. And it's no different for the viruses themselves. That's beautiful.

seen if drugs are made in a certain way that it causes the virus not to be killed but to just go into a latent stage where it's hidden and let's say as soon as the drug course stops it comes back out? You bring up a really interesting thing about latent bias. The reality is we are all

all exposed to umpteen viruses in our lifetime. So, you know, we obviously know about, say, influenza. We hear about RSV from a respiratory point of view. But viruses like CMV and EBV, BKV, these herpes, you know, we know about that as, you know, some people, the majority of us, you know, 60, 70% of us have got the herpes virus, whatever it

And some people, when they're run down or when their immune system's down, you start to get these cold sores. And now the interesting thing is, is because we're exposed to many viruses in our lifetime, when your immune system is down, you start to actually see these viruses start to cause potential problems. The reality is...

as we get older, our immune system generally gets less efficient than it was when we were younger. So when you think back to something like SARS-CoV, there were certain populations that were more at risk of actually getting a severe infection and having real problems. They were

older because again the immune system is down or people who were compromised you know when we think about even people who have had a transplant or post transplant you're taking immunosuppressant drugs to stop that rejection of the organ the problem with that is when you take those immunosuppressants

you start to reactivate these latent viruses that are dormant in our tissues that they don't go away it's just that usually our immune system deals with them and keeps them at bay so when something like SARS-CoV comes along as it

it did and there was a big exposure throughout all of the population, something like that, you know, with that new virus coming in, you know, can maybe just be the, you know, the straw that bakes the camel's back with respect to, you know, the immune system being overawed and then something like SARS-CoV and then you've got these latent viruses that come up, then start to, you know, cause a bit of a problem with respect to the immune system and cause this dysfunction. Some latent viruses will actually act to nullify

They're kind of incumbents once they've been there for a bit and they kind of act to try to repel other viruses that are new. Have you ever seen that kind of behavior where there's viruses? Yeah, well, I think, you know, because we are very concentrated on, you know, I said T cell diagnostics or producing diagnostics where you can actually sort of manage, monitor that immune development.

or even thinking about something like protective immunity. So I've mentioned to you about the transplant thing. Again, you can actually measure whether you've got an immune response to these latent viruses and whatever, whether your immune system is actually working properly. And I think you can apply it pretty much to anything. The interesting thing about the immune system, and I know from my oncology point of view, sometimes it gets to that point

that point where the tumor microenvironment, it passes the fulcrum and that it starts to become irreversible. The problem around that T cell dysfunction goes beyond where it can come back. So the thought here is, and what we're trying to do, is can you

actually come up with diagnostics to help guide physicians when they're treating people with, we've heard things like long COVID. We know things like ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, or even people who have had chronic Lyme disease. The symptoms are very similar. That chronic fatigue, you know, that cognitive problem, you know, is that something that we can sort of help and detect early? And when I say detect early, there are things that you can do to help work

with this and whatever, you know. And although there's no therapeutics that have been developed so far for something like long COVID, you know, if the T cell dysfunction is linked to oxidative stress, is linked to dysfunction of your mitochondria, then certainly from an oxidative stress point of view, when we think about what oxidative stress is, it is reactive oxygen species over...

Antioxidants. We can do something with antioxidants. We've got antioxidants in our diet. There's certainly exercise that we can do to help reduce the chronic inflammation that we've got. Obviously, there will be therapeutics that come along as well. But I think when you think about that, and of course, I'm talking about it relating to something like a post-viral infection.

infection, you know, where you've been exposed to a virus, whatever that virus is, it's caused a problem and your immune system can't deal with it, at least can't get rid of the virus and it's not functioning properly. As well as that, when you think about something, and it's very, very big at this moment, something like longevity, you know, again, what you're trying to do is you're trying to reduce that oxidative stress. It's the same thing. It's

It's this chronic inflammation which is causing most of the problems that we see. And certainly in the US, and it's the same in the UK, you know, I think the prevalence of these chronic inflammatory disorders or diseases are becoming, they are a problem, but they're going to become even more of a problem in the future, you know, because it's a huge burden, you know, to people, you know, on society, but also, you know, that they can't work.

You know they're fatigued you know And there's certainly things that we Can do to try and Help with the monitoring of that The thought being if for instance There is this sort of phase Where you start to see the dysfunction And that you can actually act on it Before it becomes you know

really sort of exhausted, you know, to the point of being irreversibly exhausted, then there's something that we could potentially do. And this is what we're trying to do, certainly at Vyrax, Biolabs, is to work with investigators and key opinion leaders within the different sort of fields, whether that be infectious disease or whether it even be an oncology, to help

develop diagnostics to help guide and to give some more information to the clinicians, to the investigators who are working with these individuals and these patients and these different indications. So what particular viruses or conditions are you guys working on right now in earnest? What would be your top one, if you can say?

The top one is obviously we know long COVID, long COVID is a big problem. Certainly, I think there's what, 70, 80 million people who have certainly, you know, say they've got long COVID. This moment in time, things like long COVID, they're all self-diagnosed. There's no diagnostics available specifically for long COVID. And when you think about long COVID, you know, there's

There's lots of different symptoms associated with that. And we're not trying to say that we can develop a diagnostic for long COVID and all of the symptoms. But certainly what we want to do is we want to look at the main symptoms associated with that. And those are chronic fatigue,

And cognitive impairment So we hear about brain fall We hear about memory problems And stuff like that Because we believe Not that we believe The science is there That chronic inflammation Is causing that sort of problem So that's where we're targeting We're targeting long COVIDs

Long COVID is just a post-acute infection syndrome. So again, you've been exposed to a virus, your immune system is basically compromised and then following on from that, it causes these manifestations and these symptoms or whatever. So long COVID, any chronic fatigue, post-treatment Lyme disease, again, all the symptoms are very similar. And we believe that certainly dysfunction of the immune system plays quite a key role specifically within those specific disorders.

Does that mean that SARS-CoV-2 has a latent form that has been identified as the cause of COVID? No, I think with respect to the SARS-CoV, and I mentioned it earlier, I believe it's just this continual stimulation of the T cells. Now, that could be because people are being exposed to SARS-CoV because it's not going away. You know, I know SARS-CoV is there. It's not going away. It's just that

It's not as problematic as it was initially when it came with respect to hospitalising people. However, when you're exposed to SARS-CoV-2, it could be another variant. It might not be as virulent, but certainly you're exposed to it.

you know, your T-cells are still dealing with. You might have a cold or a headache or something like that. But again, your T-cells are activated. Now, if your T-cells are continually activated and your immune system's down, then it starts to cause these problems and whatever, you know. So if, for instance, SARS-CoV is a thing and some people seem to get infections a lot, you know, if you've got that continual antigen stimulation and then maybe some of the latent viruses, you know, that you have had dormant in your tissues are basically acting together, then you have this

potential problem. And it manifests itself in a number of symptoms, including chronic fatigue and cognitive impairment sort of thing. So it's not necessarily that the SARS-CoV is latent. It's just the fact that we're being exposed to it constantly. And some people deal with it better than others because some people's immune systems are more efficient at dealing with that, the memory T-cells, than some other people.

So that's generally how it sort of goes. Now, the problem being is that there is no diagnosis. So usually when you think about the journey of somebody who has long COVID, you know, it's a long one. They're going to the doctor because they've got these symptoms and whatever, you know, and they basically get tested, the many different things.

And in many instances, it could be, you know, a year and a half, two years before they're actually diagnosed properly as having long COVID. And, you know, it is a problem. It is very similar, the symptoms, you know, to somebody who has, you know, ME or chronic fatigue and stuff and things like that. So again, the thought here is if you can actually provide some help to the, you know, the

the doctor who's seeing the patients at the beginning and provide a specific test that can identify that there's a problem, the problem with respect to the immune system, that there's this early stage of the dysfunction, then there's something that we can most probably try to do around that treatment management. Now, currently, people who are suffering from long COVID, most of the treatments are, it relates to diet, it relates to lifestyle, it relates to a little bit of exercise. Some drugs are being used,

but there's no specific drugs that are specific for long COVID. They will come as we understand the disease. The disease is complex. And certainly, you know, we'll get more and more information will come out from a lot of the studies that were specifically done over the last number of years and whatever, you know. And again, it's just being able to help at this moment in time to help diagnose that there is this dysfunction early on and then so that we can help...

these individuals who have this problem and the problem is a problem sort of thing and I think it's definitely something that is problematic both I know in the US but also in the UK as well and a lot of people are affected by it. As a

Has anyone been reported to have COVID like the entire time it's existed? You know, from 2020 until now? Yeah, I mean, look, when we think about, you know, COVID, we've got the PCR tests and lateral tests and stuff like that. I mean, the fact that you've got the infection, of course, you can measure that. But what we're talking about here is more just around...

you know, how your immune system is dealing with it sort of thing. So it's not the fact that, as you said, that you take a lateral flow every week and it comes positive. That's not necessarily the case. It's just the fact that you've been exposed to, you know, the SARS-CoV and you're continually exposed to maybe other viruses

and your immune system is just overwhelmed. At least your adaptive immune system is overwhelmed, but it then is just not functioning as well as it should be. And then you've got this general chronic inflammation. And that general chronic inflammation is causing oxidative stress, is causing problems around your energy source, your mitochondria and whatever, you know, and it's causing these sort of problems. So, and again, it's just one of these things that

that for some reason, you know, some people are affected differently and it really depends, you know, when we think about our immune systems and stuff like that, you know, it does become complicated because a lot of the stuff, it depends what we're exposed to when we were younger.

We could have been exposed to something that really didn't compromise their immune system. And then, you know, later on in life, it becomes a bit of a problem. And we know that reactivation of viruses in general can cause problems in oncology, can cause problems with herd post-transplant and lots of different indications and whatever, you know. And I think the key thing is, you know, is what we're trying sort of to do is certainly can we

provide some assays, some diagnostics, some tests to help identify when your immune system is not working properly. And the way that we go about it, and you mentioned that, you know, I mean, we need to be very specific about what the source of the actual problem or the immune dysfunction is. And certainly our test, the way that we're going about it, we're using specific peptide

mixes for each of the viruses. So we can actually pinpoint, you know, okay, my general immune system's down and this is what's actually causing it. It's either it's a SARS-CoV-based or it's maybe a combination of SARS-CoV plus some other latent virus, which is just overwhelming the immune system. Would you have a clear signal of people that, you know, appear to have a long COVID that have been vaccinated or not? Because, you know, a vaccine produces spike protein, maybe that confounds the data. Yeah.

How do you handle both? That's a very good question. So when you think about getting vaccinated, and we'll use SARS-CoV as an example,

When you get vaccinated, as I said, it's usually a small part of the actual virus. And then what you would do is you're going to create antibodies and antigens against that specific virus. So if you think about how that actual, and we hear about getting a booster and stuff. So usually the antibody production, you'll see a rise. And then after three or six months or so, the antibodies themselves will start to go down and whatever, you know. And then usually if you're,

compromise maybe you're older you'll get a booster you know six months later nine months later just to help and it's the same sort of thing with influenza and rsb it's a similar type of thing when we talk about the immune system and remember we're talking about memory t-cell response it's a slightly different thing so you know you've got even you you don't have antibodies left

specifically from that vaccine, you've got an immune response and you've got a memory T cell response. So when you actually come into contact with that virus, as I said to you before, your T cells trigger the T cells to generate and to activate and to specifically go for that specific virus. So when we think about our tests, what we are doing actually, we take blood, obviously,

from patients. We extract the intracellular parts of the blood. So we extract PBMCs or peripheral blood mononucleosites, which has myeloid cells, specifically T cells, as well as some other dendritic cells in there. However, what we do is we stimulate those T cells with a specific peptide mix, which is made up of epitopes of the virus. So the signal that you get

from that activated those activated T cells they're only activated specifically for the SARS-CoV so that signal is very specific to SARS-CoV so if for instance you know when we compare the you know to healthy volunteers and stuff like that you

that, you're going to see a difference. And the thought here is, is that with continual antigen stimulation, that there are certain cytokines, as we would see it, sort of thing, that tend to go down or tend to shift up or down, whatever you know. So you certainly in the scientific literature with continual antigen stimulation, what you tend to see, you see a reduction in certainly cytokines. And if you can see that

specifically relating to those those that stars cough then you can actually sort of you can determine whether there is specific dysfunction associated with that are you able to say and tell when you do your assay are you able to tell that someone has again had the mRNA vaccine or not or you can't retell we're not looking for the virus when you think about a lot of you know and it's

sort of vaccine production sort of thing. So obviously with vaccine production, they will be doing serology testing. So they'll be looking for the antibody or the antibody production. Okay, so that's part of the development sort of thing. You look at the antibody. Do you produce the antibody or the antigen specifically for that virus itself? And then you test, then you do your clinical studies

and test how effective that is. This is not what we're specifically, we're not measuring the actual specific, you know, antibody. We're measuring the memory T cell response or the T cell response to that virus and whatever. That's what we are measuring. So we talk about things like interferon gamma response and whatever, you know, we are interleukin 2 or whatever.

or IL-6 or things like that. These are cytokines that are released from the T cells that we can specifically measure sort of thing. So that's what we're specifically talking about.

Okay. So how do you help the immune system with, you know, the drug? What could you do to boost it? Or, you know, you find that there is a problem that the immune system appears to be continually under, you know, some level of stress. What do you do to help it? What we're doing at the moment. So with respect to the long COVID or these post-acute infection syndromes,

Things like ME or chronic fatigue and long COVID, there are no therapeutics at this moment in fact. So the only thing that we can do, and again most people who are being treated specifically for this, it's around this

It's around diet. It's around, you know, trying to reduce your chronic inflammation, either by light exercise, by diet, i.e. antioxidants. There's lots of things that we could take in our diet to reduce that sort of thing. Again, it's mostly, it's around diet.

management of the symptoms more than anything else. Now, I was mentioning to you before, I know that certainly a number of companies have been developing antivirals to see if, you know, with antivirals would that actually affect the long COVID. I guess the problem is you really need to identify very early to have an early, you know, for those sort of types of things to work.

But certainly I know that Certainly the pharma and the biotech Are looking at producing therapeutics Now the problem is If we know that it is chronic inflammation We know that there are certain cytokines That might be down or whatever The problem is It's not that you can just have a

an agonist to sort of interfere in gamma or IL-2 or IL-6 because the problem is when you start to put these things it causes other problems so it's not as simple as that so I think our approach it's not obviously you know it's initially based on drug our approach is to identify the problem early if we can identify early we can most probably do something about it

you know, before it becomes more of a problem that it almost hardwires into the, you know, your immune system is hardwired into a different paradigm. Now, what we do believe is, you know, we can certainly support a lot of drug companies to identify patients who have actually got long COVID by specifically, you know, looking at these, you know, utilizing the test. Because again, if they haven't got

If it's not SARS-CoV-related, you know, then you then stimulate the T cells with, you know, a peptide mix or an antigen for that. You're not going to see the problem sort of thing. There'll be something else. So again, what we can do is help drug companies, you know, get the right patients into their study, you know, so that they've got the best chance, you know, to actually see the efficacy of their specific drug.

So we'll be working alongside researchers who are working within that area, as well as drug companies, as well as general physicians who are treating these patients, providing them with a test that can identify this dysfunction, at least give guidance to what's causing some of the major symptoms of something like long COVID. So is this to be a...

It's not really a suppression of the immune system is the goal, but just a bolstering of it? Or how do you help someone when they don't have to take a drug forever? Or do they, as long as they exhibit some stress? This is what we don't know. So if you think about something, and I'm using it as an example, something like oncology sort of thing. So I mentioned to you before, usually with oncology sort of thing is, you know, a cancer cell or a tumor, what it does is it creates an environment for it

to basically metastasize or grow and also, you know, to keep itself, to stop a toxic environment. So usually what happens is they actually, you know, have this tumor microenvironment that causes this immune suppressed tumor microenvironment

The immune system can't actually deal with it. It shuts off all of the things that allow the immune system to actually deal and get rid of the actual cancerous cell. So when you think about these immunotherapies, we hear about PD-1 inhibitors and CTLA-4 inhibitors and stuff, which have had a huge impact, certainly in certain indications in oncology.

I mean, you could think about, you know, having, you know, going at it from that point of view of having, you know, PD-1 inhibitors who basically affect these specific receptors that are overexpressed and cause this T cell dysfunction. Now, the problem with oncology compounds is they're very toxic.

So I think now, of course, it's then it's down to those as well. So I think certainly, you know, I was mentioning to you before, there's still a lot of knowledge that has to be gained in things like long COVID and post-acute syndromes. But certainly there are sort of drugs and potential things that we can do. The problem is, is, you know,

A lot of the drugs, certainly oncology drugs, are toxic and whatever, you know, because they're usually destroying cells and stuff and things like that and whatever, you know. So we need to be cognizant of, you know, what we've got and whatever, you know, and basically that benefit risk as well sort of thing. What we want to try and do in whatever, certainly using long COVID as an example,

And I've talked about post-acute syndrome and I've also mentioned this thing about ME, chronic fatigue. It's been about for 50, 60 years. I'm sure you know people who have had chronic fatigue syndrome and I've got relatives who've got it, whatever you know. And basically, you know, the people who have had chronic fatigue for 40, 50 years, what we want to do is we want to avoid getting to the situation that, you know, people have got long COVID and whatever, you know, it progresses to that same sort of thing because people

people with chronic fatigue have been very, there'd be nothing for them. And we want to do something about this. And I think certainly if you read the literature and stuff like that, I think people have been suffering from any chronic fatigue. You know, although, you know, the long COVID things come along, whatever, you know, and everything's been very focused on now over the last number of years, it will help them as well. It will help people who are suffering from very similar symptoms or whatever, you know. And I think, you know, when we think about drug development,

in future drug development. We even hear about it certainly in the US around...

you know, understanding that these chronic disorders are becoming more and more prevalent and they're causing more and more problems. And the question is, can we as a society do something about it? Either take a little bit more control ourselves with respect to, you know, what we eat, you know, our lifestyle, our diet. We hear about longevity and stuff like that. The reality is, you know, that things like cognitive problems and, you know,

they're getting more and more certainly the prevalence seems to be more post SARS-CoV and

Now that might just be because there's more people coming with these problems, cognitive problems, brain frog, memory problems, and they're coming to the doctor an awful lot more. But the reality is if we don't do something about it now and identify these things early, it's going to be a huge problem and a huge burden on society that I would imagine most healthcare systems are not going to be able to deal with in the future. Well,

Why do you think there's an increase in these kind of chronic problems in people? What would be your guess? I think the virus, I mean, we're being exposed to more and more viruses. I know, Luke, SARS-CoV, I think with the SARS-CoV, it was just the nature of it as well as how many people were affected. So it means that you've been affected. And I mentioned to you before, we've been affected, you know, most of us contact with

with herpes and things like CMV and EBDV they don't become too much of a problem because our immune system deals with that sort of thing. SARS-CoV comes along affects everybody, it's just there all the time, you basically get sort of different strains and

you know, and mutations and whatever, you know, we're being affected all the time. You know, we hear about RSV, you know, we hear about influenza. Well, you know, the problem is, is we're getting, we seem to be getting exposed to more and more and more viruses and whatever, you know, and it could be that that is the problem in

in that people who, for whatever reason, have got a compromised immune system is going to cause a problem. And that problem may well be, you know, caused by the severity of the infection of SARS-CoV that they initially got. It could be just because they're constantly being exposed, you know, to the virus, wherever, you know, because it's still going about, even though it might not be as problematic as it was before, the immune system still has to deal with it.

sort of thing. And I think that's the problem that we've got. And the reality is, you know, we've most probably not done a great job of developing new, you know, new drugs for, you know, infections in the last 20, 30 years. You know, although there's a lot of work...

being done and vaccine development. I think we need to obviously have more of an eye on the efficacy of these vaccines. Vaccines are super important and whatever you know, there's lots of them about and we just need to make sure how

how effective they specifically are, whatever, you know. And when I say effective, I'm not saying necessarily just to produce an immune response, sorry, an antibody response or an antigen response specifically to the virus, but also, you know, the importance of actually producing an immune response and a memory T cell response, because that's the important thing, that if we are exposed to this virus, that we have a healthy immune system,

And that immune system recognises the virus And then deals with the virus and gets rid of it So that this chronic inflammation does not progress

persist because we know that general chronic inflammation is not a good thing to have because it causes problems in many different tissues. And if you have it long term, it is a problem. And it generally manifests itself in a number of symptoms, including things like chronic fatigue and certainly cognitive problems. Okay, well, very good. Nigel, what's the best place for people to learn more about Vyrax and about your work? Where can they go?

Well, go to theviralactbiolog.com. Certainly what we are planning to do is, you know, we're working with, you know, a lot of the sort of institutions in the US, you know, to bring these potential asses, you know, to the public and to physicians. You know, we plan with respect to certainly the long COVID one and the post-acute is to develop, you know,

up, you know, in vitro diagnostics and get approval, you know, through the FDA and working along with the, you know, the authorities so that we can make this a little bit more sort of widespread to people, you know, so that they, you know, can identify this potential problem early on and deal with it early on. As I said, you know, if, for instance, the therapeutics are going to be developed, you know, and they will be,

because it is a problem. We will be working alongside, you know, drug developers and researchers specifically

to that. So yeah, you can, we've got a website and it pretty much explains all the things we're trying to do. We're obviously looking for, you know, collaboration with researchers and key opinion leaders and investigators who really do understand the disease as well, sort of thing. And we're very excited about the potential here with respect to the Virex immune platform that we've got because again, you know, you can apply it

you know, pretty much across the board. We've talked about viruses and infections, you know, and dysfunction there. But, you know, you can also apply that to, you know, to oncology as well sort of thing. Because again, understanding your immune status and any indication is super important, you know, for the potential response of a lot of drugs and the well-being of people in general.

Okay, well, very good. Well, Nigel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Nice to speak to you. If you like this podcast, please click the link in the description to subscribe and review us on iTunes. You've been listening to the Finding Genius Podcast with Richard Jacobs.

Thank you.