General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe story of mRNA: How a once-dismissed idea became a leading technology in the Covid vaccine race
...
For decades, scientists have dreamed about the seemingly endless possibilities of custom-made messenger RNA, or mRNA.
Researchers understood its role as a recipe book for the bodys trillions of cells, but their efforts to expand the menu have come in fits and starts. The concept: By making precise tweaks to synthetic mRNA and injecting people with it, any cell in the body could be transformed into an on-demand drug factory.
But turning scientific promise into medical reality has been more difficult than many assumed. Although relatively easy and quick to produce compared to traditional vaccine-making, no mRNA vaccine or drug has ever won approval.
Even now, as Moderna and Pfizer test their vaccines on roughly 74,000 volunteers in pivotal vaccine studies, many experts question whether the technology is ready for prime time.
I worry about innovation at the expense of practicality, Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and an authority on vaccines, said recently. The U.S. governments Operation Warp Speed program, which has underwritten the development of Modernas vaccine and pledged to buy Pfizers vaccine if it works, is weighted toward technology platforms that have never made it to licensure before.
Whether mRNA vaccines succeed or not, their path from a gleam in a scientists eye to the brink of government approval has been a tale of personal perseverance, eureka moments in the lab, soaring expectations and an unprecedented flow of cash into the biotech industry.
It is a story that began three decades ago, with a little-known scientist who refused to quit.
...
https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-how-a-once-dismissed-idea-became-a-leading-technology-in-the-covid-vaccine-race/
BusyBeingBest
(8,052 posts)Describing it as synthetic mRNA that can slip into any cell and make it produce certain proteins makes me...not want to get it.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)The immune system learns to recognize it and produces antibodies to it so that it can defeat actual Covid virus particles if they appear.
Blues Heron
(5,931 posts)those are my 3 questions - which cells does the mRNA go into, what happens to them, what happens to the mRNA over time - does it disappear?