Washington – The so -called mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVVI -19 pandemic – and now scientists use this winning Nobel Prize technology to try to develop vaccines and treatments against a long list of diseases, including cancer and cystic fibrosis.
But this week, the Secretary of the United States of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-standing vaccination critic, canceled $ 500 million in the government funded by the government to create new mRNA vaccines against respiratory diseases that could trigger another health emergency.
This consonates infection illness experts who note that mRNA allows faster production of views than the old methods of vaccination production, buying precious time if another pandemic should emerge.
The use of older technology to target pandemic flu tension would take 18 months to “do enough vaccination to vaccinate only about a quarter of the world,” said Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota, an expert in pandemic preparation. But using the mRNA technology “could change spectacularly, so that at the end of the first year, we could vaccinate the world”.
Traditionally, the manufacture of vaccines required growth viruses or pieces of virus called proteins – often in giant cells of cells or, like most flu planes, in chicken eggs – then purifying them. The injection of a small dose as a vaccine leads to the body how to recognize when a real infection strikes, so it is ready to retaliate.
But this technology takes a long time. The use of mRNA is a faster process.
The “m” means Messenger, which means that the mrnm has instructions so that our body does proteins. Scientists have understood how to exploit this natural process by making laboratory mRNA.
They take an extract from this genetic code which has instructions to make protein they want the target vaccine. The injection of this extract orders the body to become its own mini-vaccin, making enough copies of the protein so that the immune system recognizes and reacts.
Years of research show protection against COVVI -19 vaccines – the two types made with mRNA and a type made of traditional technology – takes place over time. Vaccinations offer the strongest protection against severe infection and death, even if people are still infected.
But it is a common feature with the coronavirus and the flu because the two viruses are continuously mutating. This is the reason why we are told to obtain a flu vaccine each year – using vaccines made with traditional methods, not mRNA.
Today’s COVVI-19 vaccines made with mRNA by PFIZER and MODERNA can be updated more quickly each year than traditional types, an advantage that now has several companies developing other vaccines using technology.
Osterholm has about 15 vaccines against infectious diseases that could benefit from mRNA technology, but it is not the only potential. Many therapies by the disease target proteins, making mRNA a potential technique to develop new treatments. Researchers are already testing a therapeutic vaccine based on mRNA for pancreatic cancer. Genetic diseases are another target, such as experimental therapy inhaled for cystic fibrosis.
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Video journalist AP, Nathan Ellgren, contributed to this report.
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