Conventionally
vaccine contain a tiny-weakened part of the disease-causing pathogen just
enough to teach our body to build the specific antibody so that in case of any
real encounter with that pathogen, body is equipped to defeat it. mRNA vaccines
on the other hand are quite different from any other vaccines, instead of live or dead pathogen, mRNA
vaccine introduces molecules of synthetic RNA into immune cells where the
vaccine functions as mRNA, causing the cells to build
foreign protein that
would normally be produced by a pathogen (such as a virus). These protein molecules stimulate an adaptive immune response which teaches the body to identify and
destroy the corresponding pathogen.
Advantages:
·
Safety:
As mRNA is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, there is no potential
risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis. Additionally, mRNA is degraded by
normal cellular processes, and its in vivo half-life can be regulated
through the use of various modifications and delivery methods.
·
Efficacy:
Various modifications make mRNA more stable and highly translatable. Efficient
in vivo delivery can be achieved by formulating mRNA into carrier
molecules, allowing rapid uptake and expression in the cytoplasm. mRNA vaccines
can be administered repeatedly.
· Production: mRNA vaccines have the potential for rapid, inexpensive, and scalable manufacturing, mainly owing to the high yields of in vitro transcription reactions.
Side-effects
and risks:
· For those susceptible to an autoimmune response may have an adverse reaction to RNA vaccines. The mRNA strands in the vaccine may result an unintended immune reaction causing the body to believe itself to be sick. To minimize this, mRNA sequences in mRNA vaccines are designed to mimic those produced by host cells.
·
Because
mRNA is fragile, some vaccines must be kept at very low temperatures to avoid
degrading and thus giving little effective immunity to the recipient.
Fight against COVID-19:
After focusing on mRNA for her entire courier, the 66-year-old Katalin Kariko is now celebrated as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development. Her work, in collaboration with Dr Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania, laid the foundation for the stunningly successful vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. It is yet to discover why the novel mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have shown efficiency of 90 to 95 percent when the prior mRNA drug trials on pathogens other than COVID-19 were not so promising and had to be abandoned in the early phases of trials.
Working
of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines:
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines instruct our cells to
make a harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein” ---
protein found on the surface of the COVID-19 virus.
Step 1. vaccine is given in
the upper arm muscle. The muscle cells use the instruction in the vaccine to
make the protein piece. After the protein piece is made, the cell breaks down
the instructions and gets rid of them.
Step 2. The cell displays the
protein piece on its surface. Once our immune system recognizes that the
protein belongs to a foreign party, it begins building an immune response and
making antibodies, mimicking the course of action in case of a natural
infection against COVID-19.
Step 3. After Vaccination, our body is now equipped to fight and protect itself against future infection, without having to risk the serious consequences of getting sick with COVID-19.
Future Scope:
Messenger
RNA is claimed to have an incredible future. Researchers believe there is scope
to develop drugs to deal with HIV, herpes, infant respiratory virus, and
malaria, as well as possibly producing a universal flu vaccine.
Comments
Post a Comment