A New Approach to Vaccine Development

The technology being used to develop coronavirus vaccines at an unprecedented speed could change the way we treat diseases forever. Previous vaccines used weakened versions or specific pieces of a virus to stimulate antibodies. But at least two of the vaccines currently in development use synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to “trick” the immune system.

The virus that causes Covid-19 (known as SARS-CoV-2) was a good target for this type of vaccine because of its characteristic “spike” proteins (that make it look somewhat like a tiny medieval weapon), which the virus uses to penetrate cells. Very simplistically, the mRNA vaccines instruct human cells to produce these spike proteins, triggering an immune response. If the body is subsequently infected with the actual virus, it already knows how to fight it off by attacking the spikes.

An important aspect of mRNA vaccines is that they are designed to be platforms that can be modified for other proteins as well. In the future, they could be used to treat not only viruses, but inherited diseases, allergies and even cancer. However, they are fragile, requiring ultra-low-temperature storage — a drawback that poses challenges for production and transport.