Vaccine development may have just taken a revolutionary turn thanks to a team of MIT engineers. In a recent study led by Jasdave Chahal, a postdoctorate at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Omar Khan, a postdoctorate from the Koch Institute, scientists have managed to transform totally the way in which vaccines are produced to cut down the time needed to manufacture them considerably.
Currently, most vaccines are made up of a dormant form of the virus or another pathogen which take a time to manufacture and for some diseases it is too much of a risk to treat patients this way. By using RNA vaccines, the scientists can use the genetic strands to program them for any viral, bacterial, or parasitic protein and then inject that RNA into cells which will create an immune response in the patient.
By using this way of producing vaccines, scientists can cut done the manufacturing time to just seven days, which could make a difference in times of epidemics or outbreaks, which normally have no cure until the panic is over. Also, by being able to code the RNA as they need to, allows scientist to create a more specifically targeted treatment, including developing those for cancer.
The results of the tests carried out in mice showed that the vaccines were successful in treating Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii ( a parasite that causes malaria ) . This is a medical breakthrough for the team at MIT as the risk of the devastating effects of a pandemic are much lower now. The research will continue as Khan and Chahal are looking to start a company that will develop this amazing technology further and make it commercially available. Other vaccines that the team is currently working on include those against Lyme disease, cancer, and the Zika virus.
Story Source; MIT News
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