The molecules used as the foundation for the most effective vaccines against the corona pandemic to date are just a few nanometers long: a strand of nucleotides like those that exist a million times over in the cells of our bodies. We’re speaking of messenger ribonucleic acids, also known as mRNA for short. These tiny cellular building blocks transport copies of genetic information from our DNA to other cells. Once the mRNA has delivered its message, the body simply breaks it down. Some of the newly developed corona vaccines exploit this messenger function. The corona virus uses what are known as spike proteins to enter human cells and multiply within them. The vaccines, meanwhile, contain an mRNA copy of exactly the segment of the corona virus’s genetic information that controls the blueprint for the spike proteins.
Once injected into the body, this artificially created mRNA enters human cells, thus causing the cells to manufacture the corona spike protein—a harmless part of the virus. Our immune system reacts to this protein and forms antibodies to fight it; and later, if the actual virus tries to attack, our immune system has the defenses ready to fend it off. The great hope is that mRNA technology could use a similar principle to fight cancer. The Asklepios Tumor Center in Hamburg is participating in a worldwide study that is investigating the therapeutic possibilities of mRNA agents against colorectal cancer.
“For many types of tumors, the vaccine could serve as a preventative measure so that the cancer doesn’t return once it’s been successfully treated.”
Patients are injected with a blueprint for a specific target protein of their own tumor using mRNA. As Arnold explains, “This way the immune system learns which proteins it must destroy in the future.”
Arnold believes that mRNA technology has great potential for fighting viruses and tumors. After all, he says, research in the technology has been proceeding for a number of years now. “For a long time, the problem was that the mRNA couldn’t reach the target cell intact, but this has been solved by using a protective fatty layer,” he says. His prognosis for the future is accordingly optimistic: “I’m quite sure there will be more mRNA vaccines in the future.”
