The magic of mRNA powers medical advances for everyone

one mRNA Identified as carriers of protein blueprints in living cells 60 years before the first molecules of life, their pharmaceutical potential was long underestimated. The mRNA looked hopeless. It was too unstable, too weak, too inflammatory.

Successful Development of the first mRNA vaccine Our success against Covid-19 in 2020 was an unprecedented achievement in medical history. Its success builds on decades of iterative progress driven by the independent contributions of scientists around the world.

We fell in love with mRNA in the 90’s for its versatility, ability to stimulate the immune system, and its safety profile. After fulfilling its biological role, the molecule is completely degraded and leaves no trace in the body. We have discovered a way to increase its ability to deliver to the appropriate immune cells. This progress has allowed us to create effective mRNA vaccines. This vaccine induces a strong immune response when administered to humans in small doses. Furthermore, we have established a rapid and scalable process to manufacture new vaccine candidates for clinical application within weeks. The result is an mRNA breakthrough in the fight against Covid-19.

The potential of mRNA vaccines goes beyond coronaviruses. We now hope to use this technology to tackle two of the world’s oldest and deadliest pathogens: malaria and tuberculosis. Worldwide, about 10 million people are newly infected with tuberculosis each year. The medical need for malaria is even higher, with nearly 230 million malaria cases reported in the WHO Africa Region in 2020, with most deaths among her children under the age of five.

Converging medical advances, from next-generation sequencing to techniques for characterizing immune responses on large datasets, will improve our ability to discover ideal vaccine targets. Science has also made progress in understanding how the pathogens of malaria and tuberculosis hide and evade the immune system, providing insight into how to fight them.

An ongoing revolution in computational protein structure prediction will enable the modeling of three-dimensional structures of proteins. This will help decipher the regions of these proteins that are the best targets for vaccine development.

One of the strengths of mRNA technology is the ability to rapidly test hundreds of vaccine targets. Moreover, multiple mRNAs, each encoding a different pathogen antigen, can be combined within a single vaccine. For the first time, it is feasible for an mRNA-based vaccine to teach the human immune system to fight multiple vulnerable targets of pathogens. In 2023, we plan to initiate clinical trials of the first mRNA vaccine candidates against malaria and tuberculosis, combining known and novel targets. If successful, this effort could change the way we prevent these diseases and contribute to their eradication.

Medical innovations can make a difference for people around the world only when they are available on a global scale. Production of mRNA is complex and requires tens of thousands of steps, making technology transfer resource-intensive, time-consuming and error-prone. To overcome this bottleneck, we developed a high-tech solution called BioNTainer. This is a shippable modular mRNA manufacturing facility. This innovation has the potential to support decentralized and scalable vaccine production around the world by leaping into automated, digitized and scalable mRNA manufacturing capabilities. The first facility in Rwanda is expected to be operational in 2023.

2023 will see these and other important milestones that can help shape a healthier future, a future built on its promise to democratize the potential of mRNA and access to innovative medicines. expected to be brought. Now is the time to drive that change.