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Earlier this month, the world finally received some good news about COVID-19. Interim results from Phase 3 clinical trials revealed that two vaccine candidates—one from the Pfizer and BioNTech and another from Moderna—were more than 90 percent effective. In addition to sharing what appears to be very high efficacy, the vaccines have something else in common: they are both made with messenger RNA (mRNA).
mRNA vaccines work by providing the genetic code for our cells to produce viral proteins. Once the proteins, which don’t cause disease, are produced, the body launches an immune response against the virus, enabling the person to develop immunity. mRNA can theoretically be used to produce any protein, with the upside that it much simpler to manufacture than the proteins themselves or the inactivated and attenuated versions of viruses typically used in vaccines, making it an appealing technique, says Norbert Pardi, ...
