In 1978, Leon Spinks was the new kid on the block who unexpectedly beat world heavyweight champion, Mohammed Ali. It was only Leon’s eighth professional fight when he entered the ring with the smooth-talking boxing legend. You may be wondering what boxing has to do with mRNA vaccines. Here’s the deal: The new kid on the block and unexpected heavyweight hard-hitter in 2021 is mRNA.
What is mRNA and what can it do for you?
Messenger RNA is a new class of vaccine, with higher efficacy and less risk attached to its use than its adenoviral predecessor. Unlike its predecessor, this new class of vaccine does not use weakened or live virus to trigger an immune response. This is a significant distinction between mRNA and adenoviral vaccines. While the virus used in the latter is inactive, and cannot reproduce, our bodies view it as a serious virus and sometimes overreact.
Rare and sometimes fatal brain blood clots linked to adenoviral technology are most likely caused by a hyperactive immune system response to the vaccine. In contrast, mRNA is man-made, it carries no virus, and works by delivering instructional code to our cells. Without causing an overreaction, this code tells our bodies to produce the COVID-19 spike protein1.
What exactly is the spike protein?
The spike protein is a unique component of the COVID-19 virus. Because it’s one-of-a-kind, similar to how a fingerprint is one-of-a-kind, a replica of it cannot be found in any other virus.
Our cells follow the instructional mRNA and manufacture the spike protein. This gives our immune systems the chance to get a head start by allowing our bodies to see what the COVID-19 spike protein looks like.
In what is basically a dress rehearsal, or practice-run, the spike protein stimulates the immune system, causing it to produce specific COVID-19 fighting antibodies. These antibodies will recognize the unique spike protein and prevent us from being infected if the real virus ever enters our bodies2.
Now that you know what mRNA is, and what it does, let’s look at what it can do for you other than prevent you from being infected by COVID-19.
Is mRNA the best weapon in the arsenal of the world’s war on cancer?
Messenger RNA cancer vaccines work similarly to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The difference is that instead of teaching your immune system to target COVID-19, it teaches your immune system to target cancer.
In fact, before the COVID-19 pandemic, most of what we knew about mRNA vaccines came from its promising results in treating certain cancers3.
Described by Canada’s independent National Advisory Committee on Immunization as “the preferred vaccine” — meaning preferred over adenoviral vaccines — the technology of mRNA can be used to encode practically any protein.
You know the uncertainty and sadness of cancer if you’ve had it, or if one of your loved ones has had it, including your furry four-legged pet loved ones. What a different experience cancer would be if tumors could be shrunk or prevented from growing thanks to something as simple as a low-cost vaccine that is painless to receive and only leaves you with a sore arm for a day or two.
For more than two decades, scientists have worked on ways to deliver mRNA to our cells without it deteriorating. This includes human trials of mRNA cancer vaccines for lung, skin, and colon cancers, as well as the use of mRNA nanotechnology to treat other serious diseases4. The results of these trials give us every reason to be optimistic that cancer may soon have a formidable opponent — mRNA.
Pfizer-BionTech and Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines to be approved for treatment of any disease. Today let’s celebrate there is a new kid on the vaccine block, an unexpected heavyweight hard-hitter, and it gives us reason to look to the future with a new hope and optimism.
Do you need content? I can help.
Email me today – contact@insidemyoffice.ca.
Citations: 1. “AstraZeneca Coronavirus Vaccine Triggers Immune Response That Can Cause Fatal Blood Clots in the Brain.” n.d. Pharmaceutical Fraud Com. Accessed May 12, 2021. https://pharmaceuticalfraud.com/2021-03-31-astrazeneca-coronavirus-vaccine-immune-response-blood-clots.html. 2. NDWorks. “Dr. Garman Explains How Covid-19 MRNA Vaccines Work,” February 11, 2021. https://ndworks.nd.edu/news/how-do-mrna-covid-19-vaccines-work/. 3. Dülmen, Melissa van, and Andrea Rentmeister. 2020. “MRNA Therapies: New Hope in the Fight against Melanoma.” Biochemistry 59 (17): 1650–55. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.0c00181. 4. René F. Najera, Drph. 2021. “The History of the MRNA Vaccines.” Historyofvaccines.Blog. January 3, 2021. https://historyofvaccines.blog/2021/01/03/the-history-of-the-mrna-vaccines/.
UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE All content on this site is written & edited by: J. Emily Somma, BA Copywriter & Editor Inside my Office © 2021
Inside My Office 