Blueprint injections vs. dead vaccines: is mRNA the next superpower in healthcare?

How mRNA helps us to build up antibodies.

One of the very few upsides of the Covid-19 crisis is that it has educated all of us in healthcare, and vaccines in particular. Before, most of us only ever thought of vaccines, when we planned to travel to distant places or as parents who need to inform ourselves about vaccinations for our children. Now, the general public knows that there is such a thing as mRNA, and some might even be able to explain what it is and how it works.

Our immune system is fighting for us.

But before we take a deep dive into the functionality of mRNA in the pandemic control, it is important to understand how our body fights illnesses in general. Basically, our body is able to fight pathogens with antibodies. In order to build the right antibody, our body needs to know the appropriate antigen. When it comes to an infection, our endogenous phagocytic cells destroy pathogens and turn them into antigens. B-lymphocytes then build the fitting antigens that can fight the original pathogen.

Living vaccines, dead vaccines, vector vaccines – helpful, but old school?

So how did we deal with this knowledge before? We invented different types of vaccines, like attenuated vaccines. These contain living pathogens whose disease-causing characteristics have been bred away. Our body fights them and builds antibodies. We use attenuated vaccines to fight mumps, measles and rubella, for instance.

Against other illnesses, like hepatitis A and influenza, we use inactivated vaccines. These contain deadened pathogens. Depending on the vaccine, these can be contained as a whole or only partially.

A different approach is vector vaccines such as those used in the fight against Ebola, for instance. Instead of living or dead viruses, these contain harmless vectors (the molecules of the appropriate virus) in their shell.

The wow-factor of science: we can inoculate the information for blueprints now.

In the course of the Covid-19 crisis another vaccination technique became very popular: mRNA. These do not contain pathogens at all, but information about the blueprint of the appropriate antigen. With the help of this blueprint our body builds proteins that are recognized as antigens and cause the production of antibodies. This process is called protein biosynthesis.

mRNA, RNA, DNA – OMG, sounds complicated and confusing. Let’s try to bring light into the darkness of abbreviations. ‘mRNA’ stands for ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’, ‘DNA’ for ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’. mRNA is a single helix, contains the sugar ribose and consists of the 4 bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil. DNA instead, is a double helix, contains deoxyribose and consists of adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to know this by heart. But what is important to know is that DNA stores genomes, whereas mRNA can fulfill different functions such as the transmission of genetic information, the transcription of information into proteins, and catalysis, for instance.

Messenger RNA started in cancer research. And got popular in the pandemic.

So how does this work in the context of vaccination? Basically, the mRNA in the cells ensures that information of the DNA is transported to the protein plants. In the case of Covid-19, the mRNA transports the blueprints for a surface protein of the pathogen. This blueprint enables our body to then build the pathogen protein. Our body recognizes the alienness of this protein and our immune system starts to build antibodies. In the case of a sars-coV-2-infection our body is able to render the virus harmless.

What many people don’t know: mRNA wasn’t invented in the context of Covid-19. The insights being used now for the development of the mRNA vaccines come from cancer research; research that is 20 years old. Here, mRNA is supposed to help recognize bad cells to enable patients to get a highly individual treatment that protects healthy cells from destruction.

One good turn deserves another: different research areas can profit from each other.

According to the motto ‘one good turn deserves another’, cancer researchers now hope to profit from insights that are gained in the vaccination context, in regards to tolerance, impact and adverse reactions, for instance. And this hope is not unsubstantiated. In the future we could actually profit from mRNA vaccines against diverse types of cancer. The Paul-Ehrlich-Institute estimates that in 5 years from now, the first vaccines might be available.

And that is one of the great features of science. Scientific research that is conducted to solve a certain problem in a special field can reach its breakthrough in a different field. Different segments can profit from each other’s findings. And new collaborations can lead the way to make this world a safer place for humankind together. Afterall, we are all in this together.