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New gene-based technology has proven effective in the development of two promising coronavirus vaccine candidates.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotech company Moderna used messenger RNA (mRNA) when creating their respective vaccine candidates, both of which have been shown to be over 90% effective in advanced clinical trials. (Pfizer, which was the first to report the results of its vaccine, recently sought emergency approval of its vaccine from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.)
New gene-based technology has proven effective in the development of two promising coronavirus vaccine candidates.
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MRNA technology is “the science of the 21st century,” one expert recently said. Vaccines are the fastest to be developed and, if they are able to end the pandemic, they could usher in a new era of vaccine development; the technology could be used to improve existing vaccines and create new ones for a range of diseases.
“I think the use of mRNA is promising. It continues to be studied in the field of cancer treatments. The key will be how this new technology compares in terms of safety and efficacy against older technologies, ”said Dr. John Whyte, chief medical officer of the WebMD healthcare website, in an email to Fox News.
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“For example, AstraZeneca uses a traditional approach to vaccine development using an adenovirus that has been modified. Although press reports indicate less effectiveness than Pfizer and Moderna, we will have to see how long the immunity lasts for both. In addition, if the logistics are too difficult – very low temperatures – that could prevent further use of the mRNA, “he continued.” (Indeed: there is concern that the Pfizer’s vaccine candidate’s low-temperature storage requirement is not a logistical issue, as the vaccine must be stored at temperatures of 70 degrees Celsius or below. Breaking the cold chain could render the vaccine useless.)
However, “it looks promising and if the mRNA vaccine for COVID lives up to its hype, it will revolutionize the way we develop vaccines,” Whyte added.
But how does mRNA technology – mRNA is an RNA subtype – differ from a conventional vaccine?
Unlike conventional vaccines, which are produced by growing weakened forms of a virus in chicken eggs or in certain mammalian cells in the lab, RNA vaccines only require the genetic code for the pathogen.
RNA vaccines also have the advantage of speed. It takes about a week to develop an experimental batch of an RNA vaccine, while a conventional vaccine can take months, as this process requires “collecting the viruses, adapting them to grow in the lab” before they are released. buy worldwide, according to Pfizer.
And time is running out on COVID-19, which has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 Americans to date with more than 276,000 deaths expected by December.
RNA vaccines also have biosafety benefits, according to the company, which notes that “no virus is needed to make a batch of RNA vaccine.” Rather, only a small amount of virus is needed for gene sequencing and vaccine testing, where conventional vaccines require scientists to grow “large amounts of virus” to produce each batch of vaccine.
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Perhaps more importantly, RNA vaccines arguably create a stronger immune response to certain viruses and diseases than those of the traditional type.
As Pfizer notes, RNA is “injected into the body and goes into cells, where it provides instructions to produce antigens,” or a piece of the virus. The cell then “presents the antigens to the immune system, eliciting responses from T cells and antibodies that can fight the disease.”
In conventional vaccines, an antigen is injected into the body. The immune system then produces antibodies against this antigen, so if the body ever encounters this specific pathogen in the future, it is already armed with tools to combat it.
Finally, the researchers hope that RNA vaccines can be “scaled and standardized” unlike conventional vaccines, which require a “bespoke production process, including purification and complex testing,” says Pfizer.
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While Pfizer and Moderna both used mRNA technology, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, another prominent coronavirus vaccine candidate, does not use mRNA technology. Rather, it is an inactivated cold virus isolated from chimpanzees, altered by genes to express the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein.
Fox News’s Alexandria Hein and Kayla Rivas contributed to this report.
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