We are nearly upon the one year anniversary of our campus being shut down, and students being sent home to complete the semester remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A year ago, no one thought we would have a vaccine candidate out of clinical trials, let alone being distributed to the masses. And yet here we are, with roughly 60 million Americans receiving at least one dose of a vaccine, and around 2 million doses being administered per day. The magnitude of this feat should not be underestimated, as the current capabilities and future possibilities of the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna that have led our response are simply amazing.
How They Work
mRNA is a molecule that acts as a genetic blueprint produced by cells. This blueprint is read by ribosomes (the cells’ engineers), which go on to produce proteins used for a vast array of purposes. For the mRNA vaccines, mRNA encoding for the spike proteins found on the coronavirus is mass-produced, mixed with stabilizing ingredients, and injected. This mRNA only lasts for a short period of time before it’s broken down by enzymes within the cells, but within that time period it directs ribosomes to make the spike proteins, triggering an immune response. Once the immune system becomes familiar with the spike proteins, it knows exactly what to look for if a real SARS-COV-2 virus enters the body. If this occurs, the immune system can swiftly and effectively destroy the virus before it becomes a threat.
How We Got Here
Research of the mRNA vaccines/therapy began in 1990, when researchers successfully introduced mRNA produced in a lab into mice, causing the production of the encoded proteins. However, researchers ran into two main difficulties during the decades following this discovery: 1) mRNA usually produces too few proteins as it is broken down so quickly by the body, 2) mRNA could trigger an immune response independent of the response to the protein that’s encoded. Many researchers worked to solve these issues, but funding for mRNA research was frequently redirected to DNA and protein based therapies and vaccines as they are more stable and easier to work with. Despite this, a few key advances were made that greatly improved the potential for mRNA. In the early 2000s, researchers from The University of Pennsylvania discovered that switching uridine (a key component of mRNA) for pseudouridine both increased protein production and drastically decreased the immune system’s response to the mRNA itself. The main challenge confronting mRNA vaccines in the past few years has been successfully delivering the vaccine into cells. To combat this, researchers have been progressively refining the lipids used to stabilize the vaccine, and only recently have such efforts made mRNA technology viable, opening the floodgates to potential uses.
How Amazing This Technology Is
The mRNA vaccines offer several advantages over traditional vaccines. Traditionally, vaccines are made of dead or weakened viruses, or they’re made of portions of a virus. These vaccines present risk in development and production, as researchers must work with live viruses to develop the vaccine, which increases the risk of an accidental exposure/outbreak. With mRNA viruses, only the genetic sequence of the virus is needed, so risk of exposure is greatly reduced. Because only the genetic code is needed, mRNA vaccines can also be made more quickly and more cheaply. The mRNA vaccine production process is also much more standardized than the traditional vaccine-making process, resulting in fewer errors and the ability to easily edit the vaccine to different viruses and mutations. Compared to DNA vaccines being researched, mRNA vaccines avoid the risk of altering the human genome, as mRNA physically cannot enter the cell’s nucleus and reach our DNA. For years mRNA therapy has been viewed as a potentially game-changing field in medicine, and hopefully the copious amounts of money being poured into the mRNA field due to the pandemic can expedite this process. The mRNA therapies being researched instruct the body to make proteins, and these proteins could be used to rebuild heart tissue after a heart attack, repair the kidneys of those suffering from chronic renal disease, replace the broken proteins that cause cystic fibrosis, enhance the immune response to cancerous cells, and serve a wide variety of other functions. The potentially game-changing capabilities of these new mRNA vaccines and therapies could usher in a new era of medicine and alter how we combat pandemics for decades to come.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.