HOUSTON – In early 2020, the coronavirus was spreading across the globe and nobody knew how to stop it.
Within nine months, vaccines using mRNA technology were touted as the weapon to fight COVID-19.
It was a solution so effective, it stunned medical leaders and scientists.
“It is a great day for science, a great day for humanity,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, when studies showed their vaccine was 95% effective.
But it’s a controversial weapon.
“What works for one pathogen may not work for another,” said Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital for Vaccine Development.
Bottazzi said RNA technology for vaccines is at least a decade old. Before COVID, it was more commonly researched for cancer therapies, including at MD Anderson.
MD Anderson is currently studying mRNA vaccines to determine if they can be programmed to prevent colon cancer from recurring and be individualized for each patient’s cancer mutation.
“You can very rapidly deploy the production of it in months, not necessarily years,” Bottazzi said.
Because of that speed and effectiveness, many believe we’ve only seen the beginning of mRNA vaccines, which could become a go-to treatment for many diseases.
“I would like to be optimistic that RNA technology is going to stay, and in fact, is going to start being evaluated for not only just coronaviruses but even many other pathogens,” Dr. Bottazzi said.
How mRNA works
Messenger RNA allows our body to create a miniature army that‘s been taught to identify the spike protein of the coronavirus. So when the real thing comes around, your army recognizes that key identifier (the spike) and takes the bad guy down.
“The moment you have a pathogen code, we can rapidly engineer an RNA code, you know, to mimic that pathogen,” she explained. “Then our body does everything.”
The body already uses messenger RNA.
“It’s not even in interacting with our genetic code anymore, and I know a lot of people have questions right? ‘Is the RNA going to come in and modify me genetically?’ And the answer is very, very unlikely,” Bottazzi said.
Haley: Unlikely? Not impossible?
“We have not seen anything physiologically plausible that this could happen,” Bottazzi said.
Haley: How could there be long-term side effects if the body uses mRNA quickly?
“Once it’s used up and the RNA is all de-codified into a protein and then the protein, of course, is presented to our immune system and, you know, it does what it has to do, you know. What stays on our cells that learn how to recognize that protein and, you know, the RNA is no longer available,” Bottazzi said. “They’re not replicating in our body, you cannot make any more within our body. So long term, it’s going to be very difficult to think that there will be any sequelae that really came from the RNA,” Bottazzi explained.
We know there are side effects linked to the mRNA vaccines such as allergic reactions or heart issues, but experts say it happens within a couple of weeks of the injection and it’s rare.
Being able to program this technology to recognize different diseases could revolutionize healthcare, but the major barrier keeping that from happening is that it has to be stored extremely cold and it’s expensive.