mRNA Proved Magic in Covid Vaccines. What Else Can It Do?

When it became clear in early 2020 that the Sars-CoV-2 virus posed a pandemic threat, researchers who’d been exploring using messenger RNA to develop vaccines saw an opportunity. Covid-19 shots made this way were the first to demonstrate efficacy, and they have proved to be the most effective vaccines against the disease. Two scientists whose research laid the groundwork for their development won the Nobel Prize in medicine Oct. 2. The performance of the vaccines, from Moderna Inc. and the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE partnership, has raised hopes among scientists that mRNA technology will prove useful against other diseases.

Instead of introducing the body to an inactivated or weakened version of a virus or a piece of it, like previous generations of vaccines, they temporarily turn the body’s cells into tiny vaccine-making factories. They do this using synthesized versions of something called messenger RNA, a molecule that normally carries genetic coding from a cell’s DNA to its protein-making machinery. In the case of Covid vaccines, the mRNA instructs the body to make the spike protein that Sars-CoV-2 uses to enter cells. This, in turn, stimulates the body to make high levels of antibodies to the virus. Messenger RNA vaccines are quicker to develop than traditional ones because their production doesn’t require growing viruses or viral proteins inside live cells. It took researchers just a few days in January 2020 to come up with the mRNA sequence used in the Covid vaccine made by Moderna.