Messenger RNA

 Messenger RNA

 Developments in science which came to fruition in 2020 have brought a revolution to medicine. 2020 will be looked upon as a significant watershed. Top of mind is the dramatically enhanced method of producing vaccines which for decades have taken years to create, receive approval from governing authorities and bring to market. Now messenger Ribo Nucleic Acid is changing all that. In Canada in January 2021 two mRNA derived vaccines are being administered, namely those manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech pharmaceuticals and Moderna biotech. The mRNA process is being harnessed to produce vaccines in record time, a year or less.

When an infectious, pathogenic virus such as Novel Covid-19 becomes generalized in a population the scientific response is to develop vaccines in laboratories. Their purpose is to induce our immune systems to recognize the virus as a harmful foreign invader and generate specific proteins called antibodies to fight it. The foreign protein of the virus is known as the antigen. Proteins within cells make up the enzymes e.g. the RNA amino acid, which control cell processes. Our bodies’ cells genetic material is contained within the DNA in the chromosomes of the genes. When cell growth occurs (good growth in a healthy body, bad in the case of an infected body) cells divide and the DNA double helix strands split, one strand being mRNA.

The Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines employ mRNA in a process that creates a genetic blueprint to build what is known as outer “spike protein” which shows the immune system the invader. Neither weakened living virus nor whole dead virus is used as in traditional vaccines. Novavax (yet to be approved in Canada) is using another method. It uses genetic sequencing technology to snip a unique shortened segment of the mRNA protein chain of the virus (its calling card you might say). This vaccine prompts our immune system to stunt virus cell replication whenever it encounters the snipped sequence in body fluids. Even if variants of the virus e.g. the British, South African or Brazilian types, appear, the original snippet of tagged genetic material seems enough to induce the immune response. Likewise research so far shows the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are capable of handling variants.

The core principles of these bioengineering technologies allow advances to combat much more than viruses. Cancer and multiple sclerosis treatments are amongst the conditions where parallel application is on the horizon, also methods to combat auto-immune deficiency.