What Next For mRNA Vaccines?

The Guardian: Flu, cancer, HIV: after Covid success, what next for mRNA vaccines? 

The technology was viewed with skepticism before the pandemic but there is now growing confidence about its use 

 It is one of the most remarkable success stories of the pandemic: the unproven technology that delivered the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in record time, helping to turn the tide on Covid-19. The vaccines are based on mRNA, the molecule that instructs our cells to make specific proteins. By injecting synthetic mRNA, our cells are turned into on-demand vaccine factories, pumping out any protein we want our immune system to learn to recognise and destroy. 

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WNU Editor: It has cost a lot of money to develop the current mRNA Covid vaccines. That is why I an willing to bet that it will be money that will be the biggest obstacles for developing these type of vaccines in the future.

WHO: Combine H1N1, Regular Flu Vaccines

Natalie Matutschovsky for TIME.com

From Time Magazine:

(LONDON) — The World Health Organization is recommending that swine flu be added to regular flu vaccines next season.

The swine flu pandemic virus, or H1N1, emerged too late last year to be added to the regular flu vaccine, and a separate vaccine was needed.

For this year's northern hemisphere flu season, however, the two vaccines should be combined, WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday after the agency met this week to decide which strains should be recommended to drug makers for vaccines.

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Bill Gates Pledges $10bn For A 'Decade Of Vaccine'

Photo: Bill Gates (Seth Wenig/AP)

From Times Online:

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, is to make the largest ever single charitable donation with a pledge of $10 billion (£6 billion) for vaccine work over the next decade.

Mr Gates said that he hoped the coming ten years would be the “decade of the vaccine” to reduce dramatically child mortality in the world’s poorest countries. It is calculated that his pledge could save more than 8 million lives.

Announcing the commitment, which far outstrips even the enormous previous donations by his own foundation, Mr Gates called for increased investment by governments and the private sector to help to research, develop and deliver vaccines.

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Personalised Vaccines Could Protect All Children

Time for your personalised shot (Image: Phanie Agency/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

CHILDREN whose genetic make-up means they may not be protected by the standard form of a vaccine could in future be given a personalised shot. This is the prospect raised by the discovery of gene variants that seem to predict whether an individual will produce enough antibodies in response to a vaccine to protect them against disease.

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Flu Vaccines Hit A Wall

Photo: Attacking influenza: Scientists hope that new technologies for making vaccines will lead to quicker availability of vaccines against the human strain of H1N1 that originated from the swine flu virus, shown here. Credit: CDC

From Technology Review:

As new influenza strains emerge, researchers struggle to speed vaccine development.

Making a vaccine against seasonal influenza is a constant catch-up game. Scientists must predict which of the constantly mutating virus strains will be most virulent six months in the future, the amount of time it takes to manufacture the vaccine. The system has worked well enough for the regular flu. But when new, virulent strains emerge--including the current, rapidly spreading swine flu (H1N1)--the traditional approach falls short. Even as consumers clamored for a vaccine, it took seven months and around 48,000 confirmed U.S. cases before the first H1N1 vaccines were shipped to hospitals around the country.

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Vaccines In Space: Taking Biotech To Microgravity Labs

Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

From Popular Mechanics:

Last week, International Space Station crews conducted a trailblazing microgravity vaccine experiment on behalf of a company to thwart drug-resistant infections. The trick: growing superdiseases in space. Soon after, the CEO of the company behind the experiment told attendees at a conference in New York City what he envisions for the future of space-age biotech.

Last month the public watched as astronauts on the space shuttle Atlantis conducted risky spacewalks to fix the Hubble Space Telescope. But there was another, quieter task that the astronauts pursuedóa commercial drug experiment aimed at finding a vaccine against a deadly staph infection besetting hospitals.

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Is Vaccine Refusal Worth The Risk?

From NPR:

Morning Edition, May 26, 2009 · Over the past 10 years, a highly contagious and sometimes fatal bacterial disease once thought to have been eradicated from the U.S. has re-emerged, threatening the youngest and weakest. Pertussis is a bacterial infection of the lungs and spreads from person to person through moisture droplets in the air, probably from coughs or sneezes. A person with pertussis develops a severe cough that usually lasts four to six weeks or longer.

Health officials cite an increase in the incidence of pertussis, particularly among infants and teenagers. In 1976, there were just over 1,000 reported cases of pertussis in the United States; by 2004, it had climbed to nearly 26,000 cases; and between 2000 and 2005, there were 140 deaths resulting from pertussis in the U.S.

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