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The COVID-19 vaccine uses the first kind of mRNA technology to protect a person from infection.
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Scientists are now applying the technology to other difficult-to-treat diseases such as cancer and HIV.
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Clinical trials are currently underway and have promising initial results.
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Scientists are experimenting with COVID-19 vaccine technology as a way to treat terminal diseases such as cancer and HIV, Inverse reported.
This is because the coronavirus pandemic has prompted scientists to create a first vaccine of its kind using mRNA, or a small piece of a coronavirus particle’s vein protein, to create an immune system response that protects against infection.
This is a vaccine approach that researchers have been studying for the past 25 years, Insider reported earlier.
After effective clinical trials and millions of successful vaccinations with mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, researchers are now investigating how the discovery could make way for other sought-after treatments.
Scientists prepare to study mRNA for cancer and HIV treatment
Scientists at the University of Texas, Anderson Cancer Center, are currently preparing to study mRNA as a cancer treatment.
They believe that mRNA can be used to prevent cancer recurrence, said dr. Van Morris, an oncologist at the head of the clinical trial, said in a recent article on the MD Anderson website.
The likelihood of recurrence of cancer varies according to the type of cancer, and is most common in ovarian cancer, bladder cancer and glioblastoma. Recurrence occurs when small amounts of cancer cells remain in the body after treatment, multiply and in some cases move to other parts of the body.
In the trial, which is currently in its second phase, doctors are testing cancer patients who have had tumors removed and undergone chemotherapy. Once tests reveal cancer cells still circulating through their bodies, the researchers create individualized mRNA cocktails.
“We are hopeful that with the personalized vaccine we will have to prepare the immune system to go to the remaining tumors, clean it and cure the patient,” Morris said.
Scientists at Scripps University in California are also looking at HIV, a sexually transmitted infection that affects 1.2 million people worldwide, as a candidate for an mRNA vaccine.
Similar to the way the COVID-19 vaccine attaches to and kills prickly coronavirus proteins, the HIV vaccine can do the same with HIV particles, said William Schief, an immunologist at Scripps Research, who helped develop the HIV vaccine. to develop in a phase 1 trial. in a press release.
Now that Schief’s team knows that mRNA can be used to target and kill HIV, they will use this technology in future studies in the hope of creating an HIV vaccine soon.
Since the advent of the COVID-19 vaccine, researchers have also threatened that diseases they expect could become greater threats in the coming years.
Oxford University scientists who worked with AstraZeneca to develop their COVID-19 vaccine are now working on a vaccine to treat the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, Insider reported earlier.
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