The vaccines that have helped billions of people around the world to protect themselves from Covid-19 were a surprise even to their manufacturers.
Harnessing a new and relatively untried technology called messenger RNA, or mRNA, the vaccines were available many months and possibly even years ahead of when health experts expected safe and effective traditional vaccines to arrive.
Now scientists, governments and drugmakers are asking, what else can mRNA do?
Many believe that mRNA could serve as the basis for a new generation of vaccines and drugs against a range of other diseases.
Efforts in development include cancer therapies tailored to individual patients that can be assembled in a few weeks and HIV vaccines to be given periodically in lieu of current daily pills.
Clinical trials for mRNA products are also under way for influenza, and vaccines are in development for malaria, tuberculosis and liver ailments.
“It’s really limitless what RNA can do,” said Drew Weissman, a University of Pennsylvania immunologist whose research contributed to the Covid-19 vaccines. “We’re making vaccines against viruses, bacteria, pathogens, parasites, cancer, allergic diseases, autoimmune diseases. The list goes on and on.”
