The Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly questioned the safety of RNM vaccines against COVID-19. Scientists were advised with funds from the National Health Institutes that appear their subsidies of any reference to the RNA. Throughout the country, state legislatures are considering bills to prohibit or limit such vaccines, and one describes those that describes them as weapons or mass destruction.
While the MRNA, or the messenger RNA, has received generalized attention in recent years, scientists first discovered it in 1961. They have been studying and exploring their promise to prevent infectious diseases and treat cancer and rare straight.
What is RNM?
A large molecule that is found in all our cells, the RNM is used to make each protein that our DNA directly builds. It does so by carrying information from the DNA in the nucleus to the protein manufacturing machinery of a cell. A single MRNA molecule can be used to make many copies of a protein, but it is naturally scheduled to die optionally, said Jeff Coller, Professor of Biology and RNA therapy at Johns Hopkins University and co -founder of a RNA therapy.
How do Arnm vaccines work?
At this time, there are three vaccines approved by the available FDA that use MRRy, two for COVID-19 and one for RSV, or respiratory syncitial virus, in older adults. These vaccines consist of threads or RNAs that encode specific viral proteins.
Let’s say you get a COVID-19 vaccine. MRNA threads, packaged in small fat particles, enter muscle and immune cells, said Robert Alexander Wesselhoft, director of RNA Therapeutics at the Gen and Cell therapy Institute in Mass Brigham. Protein factories in the cells then take RNM instructions and manufacture a protein like the one on the surface of a COVID-19 virus. His body recognizes that proteins are strange and rid an immune response.
Most of the RNM will have gone in a few days, but the body retains a “memory” or in the form of antibodies, Dr. Ir. Said Coller. As with other types of vaccines, immunity decreases both with time and as a virus evolves to new variants.
Why are Arnm vaccines used now?
In mid -20,000, scientists from the University of Pennsylvania discover how to obtain foreign Arnm in human cells without leggen first. That allowed researchers to develop it for use in vaccines.
The main use for such vaccines at this time is to prevent infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 and RSV, said Dr. Wesselhoft, who founded a company that develops RNA therapies. MRNA vaccines can be done very quickly because all components, in addition to the RNA sequence, remain the same in different vaccines.
This feature could be useful for developing the annual flu vaccine, said Florian Krammer, a virologist at the ICAHN Medicine School in Mount Sinai, who has previously consulted Pfizer and Cureevac in RNM therapies. In general, scientists decide in February or March which strains of the influenza virus include in a vaccine that will be implemented in the United States in September. But at that time, a different strain can be dominant. Because a HRNM vaccine can be manufactured faster than the current flu vaccine, scientists could wait until May or June to see what efforts are circulating, said Dr. Krammer, which increases the probability that the vaccine will be effective.
Do these vaccines have risks?
A common question that patients ask is whether a HRNA vaccine can affect their DNA, Dr. Ir. Boucher said. The answer is no. Our cells cannot convert RNA into DNA, which means that it can be incorporated into our genome.
The Vaccine for COVID-19 can cause muscle aches and symptoms of Flulike, but thesis is expected side effects for vaccines in general, said Dr. Krammer.
More than four years have passed since the COVID-19 vaccine was first implemented “and there are no long-term safety signs,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases in New York. Many parents were concerned about myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that was reported as a possible side effect of the vaccine. But, said Dr. Ratner, the risk of such inflammation of a real COVID-19 infection, or an inflammatory Covid or multisystem syndrome in children, was much greater.
Why can Arnm be used?
Vaccines that are used are currently being studied for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes and rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that is Thitte Isttt Isttt its IES that has this plug This plug Lung damage.
In cancer, the idea, which the MRNA encodes a tumor protein is that the immune system will recognize as strange, will tell the body to attack the tumor. In a genetic disorder such as cystic fibrosis, encodes a version of a poor protein to replace the defective and restore mucus to the healthy state.
An article in Nature magazine earlier this year showed that an experimental RNM vaccine for pancreatic cancer caused an immune response in some patients after they underwent cancer surgery. Patients who experienced that immune response live more without cancer than patients who did not.
Another document recently showed that, in the monkeys, an inhande RNM therapy could produce a protein necessary to form cilia, the flow structures that are aligned in our respiratory tract and move the mucus of them. These proteins do not work in a weakening respiratory disorder called primary ciliary dyskinesia.
This research is an initial stage: the Pancrea Cancer study, a phase I trial, included only 16 patients, and there may be other differences between the two groups that explained the different survival times. There is a long research history that shows that interventions can lead to immune responses without the results of real patients, explained Dr. Steven Rosenberg, head of the surgery branch of the National Cancer Institute and expert in cancer immunotherapy.
Dr. Richard Boucher, a pulmonologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, pointed out that for lung diseases, it is extremely difficult to get the Arnm of participation to be safely to the right cells.
In general, said Dr. Ratner, RNM vaccines are “exciting”, since they offer hope for disease treatments where previous technologies have failed. But RNM therapy is a drug technology that remains another: in some diseases it will probably work, “and in other cases it is likely.”
