Nobel Prize winners Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman pioneered the technology that produced a Covid-19 vaccine in record time. Next, mRNA could tackle flu, malaria, and HIV.
the first Covid-19 vaccine to be as good as it was. “We were hoping for around 70 percent, that’s a success,” says Dr Ann Falsey, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester, New York, who ran a 150-person trial site for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in 2020.
Neither company was a household name before the pandemic. In fact, neither had ever had a single drug approved before. But both had long believed that their mRNA technology, which uses simple genetic instructions as a payload, could outpace traditional vaccines, which rely on the often-painstaking assembly of living viruses or their isolated parts.
Şahin would go further. “It will be transformative, there’s no question. It will be absolutely transformative. Many older vaccine platforms will not survive.” But, he says, the impact will go beyond what we already know. “There are so many more things we can do. This is not just a replacement; we will be coming up with other new medical innovations that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.”so surprised that mRNA vaccines passed their first test with flying colors.
Working with Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 2000s, Karikó engineered synthetic mRNA molecules that could avoid the body’s defenses. It was a painstaking process that, Weissman says, killed a lot of mice before they finally found the successful formula. But in 2004, one of her constructs worked. In effect, this opened the lines of communication between our cells and mRNA messages created by scientists.
Unlike the early days of mRNA research, we won’t be waiting decades for its next big test. The pandemic has put it in the spotlight, and scientists are eager to find out if its success against coronavirus can be replicated.mRNA vaccine breakthrough probably won’t be against another exotic new disease, but a very familiar one. “Flu is the number one target,” Falsey says. A disease that most people consider under control, influenza still kills over 300,000 people worldwide most years.
This would seem to require a rapidly adaptable and changeable vaccine—and the seasonal flu vaccine is not that. The first commercial flu vaccine was licensed in the US in 1945, and we make it nearly the very same way today. The vaccine is made by growing the target flu virus strains in fertilized hens’ eggs, then purifying it from their whites—a process just as messy as it sounds. The viruses are then chemically inactivated, and shot into patients’ arms.
This gives mRNA a massive speed advantage over traditional methods, meaning the flu virus would have less time to mutate before a vaccine arrives. “The lead time to make the vaccine is so much shorter. You could make a huge batch in two weeks. You could even have multiple different flu vaccines across the winter if it changes in real time,” Blakney says.
Perhaps no virus has proved harder or more intractable than HIV. “We are nearly 40 years on from the discovery of HIV,” Mark Feinberg, head of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, says, and despite advancements in treatments and prophylaxis, a cure is “not close.” There are a thicket of problems. HIV is a long-term infection—hiding quietly inside our cells rather than fighting an immediate, pitched battle with the immune system, like Covid-19 or the flu.
Suddenly, the scientific timeline for this incredibly ambitious project is compressed by years—decades even, says Cain. “The million dollar question is still whether this will work,” Cain says, but the mRNA approach could return an answer far sooner than anyone thought possible just a few years ago. “That scale was unimaginable before. We’re at a very exciting point,” says Feinberg.is playing out across hundreds of different scientific fields. 2020 opened the floodgates.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman win Nobel Prize in medicine for enabling development of mRNA vaccinesTwo scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
Read more »
Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman Win Nobel Prize for mRNA Vaccine DevelopmentKatalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.
Read more »
Who is Penn Nobel prize winner Katalin Karikó?Penn scientists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were named recipients of the 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine.
Read more »
Nobel Prize announcements are getting underway with the unveiling of the medicine prizeSix days of Nobel Prize announcements begin Monday with the unveiling of the winner of the medicine award.
Read more »
Nobel Prize announcements are getting underway with the unveiling of the medicine prizeSix days of Nobel Prize announcements begin Monday with the unveiling of the winner of the medicine award.
Read more »
Nobel Prize announcements are getting underway with the unveiling of the medicine prizeSix days of Nobel Prize announcements are beginning with the unveiling of the winner of the medicine award
Read more »