Could mRNA make us superhuman?

‘Until recently most people had never even heard of mRNA vaccines. Now scientists believe they may be the key to solving a wealth of health problems...

‘The theory behind the mRNA vaccine was pioneered by University of Pennsylvania scientists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who both recently received the 2021 Lasker Award, America's top biomedical research prize. Even in 2019, however, mainstream mRNA vaccines were believed to be at least five years away. The pandemic fast-forwarded this field of medicine by half a decade. Kathryn Whitehead, an associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and a key collaborator of Weissman and Karikó admits, "there weren't many people in the mRNA therapeutics world who would have imagined 95% initial efficacy rates in this emergency scenario".

‘But now, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Or, as Blakney puts it: "Now it's like, OK, so it's worked for a viral glycoprotein, what other vaccines can we make with it? And what can we do beyond that?"... 

‘All this raises the question: could mRNA therapeutics give us almost superhuman immunity? Already Covid-19 mRNA vaccines lead some people to produce very high levels of antibodies, able to neutralise several variants of Covid-19 at once. 

‘There's also the potential to mix various mRNA vaccines together into a single health booster vaccine, which could ward off cancers and viruses at the same time. While it's just speculation at present, Fu says, "you could take a whole bunch of different flavours… a cocktail of mRNAs that make different proteins selective for your particular need." Both Moderna and Novavax already have combined Covid-19 and flu vaccines in development.’

Read here (BBC, Nov 23, 2021)

Scientists mystified, wary, as Africa avoids Covid disaster

“We went into this project thinking we would see a higher rate of negative outcomes in people with a history of malaria infections because that’s what was seen in patients co-infected with malaria and Ebola,” said Jane Achan, a senior research advisor at the Malaria Consortium and a co-author of the study. “We were actually quite surprised to see the opposite — that malaria may have a protective effect.”

‘Achan said this may suggest that past infection with malaria could “blunt” the tendency of people’s immune systems to go into overdrive when they are infected with COVID-19. The research was presented Friday at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.’

Read here (Associated Press, Nov 20, 2021)

How mRNA technology could change the world

‘mRNA’s story likely will not end with COVID-19: Its potential stretches far beyond this pandemic...

‘But mRNA’s story likely will not end with COVID-19: Its potential stretches far beyond this pandemic. This year, a team at Yale patented a similar RNA-based technology to vaccinate against malaria, perhaps the world’s most devastating disease. Because mRNA is so easy to edit, Pfizer says that it is planning to use it against seasonal flu, which mutates constantly and kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year. The company that partnered with Pfizer last year, BioNTech, is developing individualized therapies that would create on-demand proteins associated with specific tumors to teach the body to fight off advanced cancer. In mouse trials, synthetic-mRNA therapies have been shown to slow and reverse the effects of multiple sclerosis. “I’m fully convinced now even more than before that mRNA can be broadly transformational,” Özlem Türeci, BioNTech’s chief medical officer, told me. “In principle, everything you can do with protein can be substituted by mRNA”.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Mar 29, 2021)

How Covid-19 vaccine efforts could help defeat other diseases

• A proposed way of immunizing against malaria uses an RNA-based approach similar to COVID-19 vaccines.
• ‘Viral vector’ methods used to stem the pandemic could also yield vaccines for other purposes.
• COVID-19 vaccination achievements could be applied to diseases that kill millions of people annually.

Read here (World Economic Forum, Mar 4, 2021)

Health service disruptions due to drug shortage could lead to 769,000 malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa

‘A new modelling analysis by WHO and partners considers nine scenarios for potential disruptions in access to core malaria control tools during the pandemic in 41 countries, and the resulting increases that may be seen in cases and deaths.

‘Under the worst-case scenario, in which all insecticide-treated net campaigns are suspended and there is a 75% reduction in access to effective antimalarial medicines, the estimated tally of malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 would reach 769 000, twice the number of deaths reported in the region in 2018. This would represent a return to malaria mortality levels last seen in the year 2000.’

Read here (WHO, April 23, 2020)