Explained: Why RNA vaccines for Covid-19 raced to the front of the pack.

[2greys]

Developing and testing a new vaccine typically takes at least 12 to 18 months. However, just over 10 months after the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was published, two pharmaceutical companies applied for FDA emergency use authorization of vaccines that appear to be highly effective against the virus.

Both vaccines are made from messenger RNA, the molecule that cells naturally use to carry DNA’s instructions to cells’ protein-building machinery. A vaccine based on mRNA has never been approved by the FDA before. However, many years of research have gone into RNA vaccines, which is one reason why scientists were able to start testing such vaccines against Covid-19 so quickly. Once the viral sequences were revealed in January, it took just days for pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer, along with its German partner BioNTech, to generate mRNA vaccine candidates.

“What’s particularly unique to mRNA is the ability to rapidly generate vaccines against new diseases. That I think is one of the most exciting stories behind this technology,” says Daniel Anderson, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

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