Could mRNA vaccines open the way to a cure for Multiple sclerosis?

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We’ve all heard of BioNTech-they were Pfizer’s partner in developing the first of the new generation mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. Remember all the excitement back in November last year? Now it seems that mRNA technology can do a lot, lot more. Like potentially curing the dreadful disease of Multiple Sclerosis. BioNTech scientists Katalin Karikó and Ugur Sahin have released results on studies on mice with a neurodegenerative disease which is similar to MS. The mRNA injections seem not only to slow the progress of the disease, but also to reverse it. It’s early days yet, but the implications are revolutionary.*

So, let’s open out this whole trope of mRNA a little further, courtesy of Nature Briefings*:

^{Two of the first COVID vaccines to get emergency approval — developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — use RNA technology. They are the first RNA vaccines authorized for use in humans, despite efforts going back decades. Nature explores how manufacturing and distribution challenges held the technology back and what the future holds now that the power of RNA vaccines has been unleashed.}

Please click on the link below for the piece by Elie Dolgin. It’ll quickly tell you how these things were dreamed up, how they work, and their potential, even against “Holy Grail” illnesses like malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and cystic fibrosis. We think such knowledge should now be part of the mental furniture of every educated person. Just as your grandparents suddenly had to know about things like radar, nuclear reactions and antibiotics back in 1945. Because if even half of this mRNA technology works, it will transform the world more surely than even those advances did.

^{for the BioNTech story, here’s Nuño Dominguez in El Pais– translators at the ready}

La vacuna de la covid abre una nueva vía contra la esclerosis múltiple | Ciencia | EL PAÍS (elpais.com)

^{here’s the link to Nature}

How COVID unlocked the power of RNA vaccines (nature.com)

#mRNA #vaccines #sars-cov-2 #BioNTech #multiplesclerosis #HIV