The messenger RNA, or mRNA,
platform may be new to the global public, but it's a technology that
researchers had been betting on for decades. Now those bets are
paying off, and not just by turning back a pandemic that killed
millions in just a year.
This approach that led to
remarkably safe and effective vaccines against a novel virus is also showing
promise against old enemies such as HIV, and infections that threaten babies
and young children, such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and metapneumovirus.
BioNTech founders -- and husband
and wife team -- Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci told me on my "Coronavirus:
Fact vs. Fiction" podcast in March that they were intrigued by mRNA’s
potential to treat cancer. It’s an elegant solution, they told me, that can
potentially target cancers in a personalized way. Today, the company has eight
potential cancer treatments in human trials.
Moderna is also working on
personalized cancer vaccines.
"We identify mutations found
on a patient's cancer cells," the company says on its website. Computer
algorithms predict the 20 most common mutations. "We then create a vaccine
that encodes for each of these mutations and load them onto a single mRNA
molecule." That's injected into the patient to try to help orchestrate a
better immune response against the tumors.
This is early research, but it’s exciting to see where this technology may next be applied -- and what it may be a solution for.
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