Next Generation of Vaccines
Written By : Tharaka Rambukkamage
With the advancement of technology, we are travelling to a new era filled with new discoveries. Technology changes the way of doing things, and as a result, unbelievable developments have occurred in the scientific and medical fields. During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone had to undergo an experience they had never faced. With the tragic situation, people focused on inventing medicines and vaccines to eliminate the life-threatening COVID. The next-generation vaccine resulted from this revolution and has been named the “One of the best discoveries of this century”.
Before the coronavirus epidemic, hundreds of researchers had been working on mRNA vaccines for years. A form of RNA found in cells is called mRNA. MRNA molecules carry the genetic information required to produce proteins. Meanwhile, a vaccination is a medication that prepares the body’s immune system to combat a disease it has never encountered before.
In 1987, a graduate student at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, mixed messenger RNA with fat droplets. Human cells dissolved in this genetic gumbo absorbed the mRNA and produced proteins. Later that year, Malone’s experiments showed that frog embryos absorbed such mRNA. Moreover, Malone’s experiments with messenger RNA (MRNA) helped pave the way for one of the most profitable and significant vaccines in history.
An mRNA vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer to fight against both COVID-19 and influenza started its phase I trial in November 2019. A binding protein for SARS-CoV-2, Omicron BA.4/BA.5, and four influenza variants is encoded by mRNA strands found in the combination vaccination. The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, which have been administered to hundreds of millions of patients worldwide, were made possible by those experiments, which served as a steppingstone to two of the most significant and successful vaccinations in history. These were sold for more than $50 billion worldwide just in 2021.
The dramatic success of the next-generation vaccines is a milestone in this era. Remember that everything has its pros and cons. Thus, the world will progress towards a better generation when technology is in the right hands.
