Cancer, heart attack, autoimmune and rare diseases: according to Moderna, vaccines will be ready by 2030

Various types of cancer, heart attack and other diseases, such as autoimmune diseases. The scene of vaccines, preventive but above all therapeutic, could change profoundly within a few years. Not too many. Modern announced, with an interview with GuardianThat by 2030 new products based on mRNA technology could be ready, theMessenger RNAstudied at least since the 1960s – for example with the work of the Hungarian scientist Katalin Karikopioneer of a sector until the mid-nineties considered unpromising – but which rapidly matured under the pressure of Covid-19.

Millions of lives could therefore be saved by a number of new vaccines. The ongoing trials are «incredibly promising», as he explained to the British newspaper Paul Burtonmedical director of the US pharmaceutical company, who says he is even more optimistic: within five years these molecular treatments will be available for «any kind of problem». A official statement recounts, for example, some of these advances, in particular those of a vaccine against melanoma serious, reached the third or fourth stage: it is called MRNA-4157/V940, the company has developed it in collaboration with msd extensionis thought to be used in conjunction with the anticancer of the group pembrolizumabalready used today, and received a first go-ahead from the European agency EMA to continue and rapidly support the research of the two companies.

We will therefore have a vaccine against various types of neoplasms, “it will be highly effective and will save many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives – said Burton – I think we will be able to offer personalized vaccines against different types of cancer to people around the world. Similarly, several respiratory infections – flu, Covid and syncytial virus, very dangerous for children – could be covered by one single administration. And at the same time pathologies for which there are no drugs today could, thanks to the versatility of mRna, find a first way of treatment. As known, the mRna it contains molecular information and does not intervene in the cellular DNA in any wayas many fear: it actually teaches cells how to make le protein necessary to trigger a specific immune response towards a single pathology.

“I think we will mRNA-based therapies for rare diseases that previously were not curable – says the head of the company led by Stéphane Bancel – and I think that in ten years we will approach a world in which we can truly identify the genetic cause of a disease and, with relative simplicity, go and modify and repair it using mRNA-based technology. They need to do that very high investments because the risk is somehow losing the driving force triggered by Covid-19, an absolute accelerator of research in this area.

In particular, an mRNA-based cancer vaccine would alert the immune system to a type of cancer that is already developing in a patient’s body, so it can attack and destroy it before it gets out of control or grows excessivelywithout destroying healthy cells as often happens with other therapies.

How you do it? By identifying, on the surface of tumor cells, protein fragments which instead are not present on healthy cells: in this way, through the vaccine, the organism will be pushed – before the situation becomes too serious – to produce antibodies capable of attacking them selectively. To do it in a personalized key you will need a tumor biopsythe genetic sequencing of the material to identify the mutations not present in healthy cells and, thanks to the help of an algorithm of machine learning, it will be understood which of these mutations is responsible for the indiscriminate growth of the tumor and which, on the other hand, is simpler to trigger a robust immune response. Thus, personalized mRna vaccines will be born, based on most promising antigens according to these two points of view, but also standard products based on the antigens most frequently reactive to these stimuli for certain neoplasms.

But, in fact, it is not only the case of cancer. According to Burton, if there is one thing that the group has understood after these three years of developing Covid-19 vaccines (also in terms of production capacity) and starting other trials in other areas, it is precisely that mRna can be useful in practically any area: from tumors to respiratory infections passing through cardiovascular, autoimmune and rare diseases. Last January, Moderna announced, for example, the results of a vaccine trial for the respiratory syncytial virusfound to be 83.7% effective in preventing at least two typical symptoms of the disease, such as cough and fever, in adults over 60: numbers which, as for melanoma vaccines, have guaranteed the company a fast track in the review of the results of future studies.

Also Pfizer has started a clinical trial of an influenza vaccine designed with mRna and, with BionTech, plans to also address theshingles. And the pandemic has also made great strides in other approaches such as protein subunit vaccines, such as those in which the US specializes Novavax. The challenge remains that, according to many experts, not to miss this moment and the opportunity to make medicine make an epochal leap. Resources are needed and the ongoing wars, for example, take away many of them from peaceful research for the good of humanity.

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