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The response from the scientific community to Covid-19 has nothing less than Herculean. The researchers have developed several extremely effective vaccines against the new virus in less than one year – with more on the way – and we have a technology based on the mRNA to thank. The discovery which, instead of injecting semi-dead viruses into ourselves, we can guide our body to generate an immune response by inculcating it to produce fragments of protein, has been a revolution in the field of immunology . As vaccination rates for the current pandemic continue to climb, the medical community plans to turn this powerful genomic weapon against the myriad of other deadly diseases. And they are already very close to having one for malaria.
“The vaccination field has been transformed forever and always advanced because of Covid-19,” Dr. Dan Barouch, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccination Research at Harvard Medical School, “said The AAMC in March.
According to the Mayo Clinic, about 290 million people are infected with malaria each year and at least 400,000 people die of the disease each year – mainly young children, seniors and infirm – by doing the most invasive parasite disease of the world. The symptoms involve “cyclic attacks” ongoing and chills and chills followed by fevers followed by chills followed by fevers.
“Safe, effective and affordable vaccines could play a crucial role in malaria defeat,” said Dr. Robert Newman, Director of the WHO World Malaria Program in 2013. “Despite all recent countries of progress have Done, and despite significant innovations in diagnostics, drugs and vector control, the global burden of malaria remains unacceptably high. “
Researchers have sought a malaria vaccine almost since its first confirmation in 1897. However, progress has been slow and the reasons that are “multiple” and reside in the complexity of the parasite, which expresses more than 5,000 proteins during the course of His different life. Steps, the complex interaction between parasitic biology and host immunity, a lack of adequate resources and a lack of effective global cooperation, “wrote Giampietro Corradin and Andrey Kajava, professors from the University of Lausanne and The University of Montpellier, respectively, in the Journal Expert Review of Vaccines in 2014.
But new research on Oxford University serves to transform this dynamic into one’s ear. In a report published at the April number of Lancet, Mehreen Datoo, the study author and the clinical research of the Jenner Institute of Oxford and his team revealed that they had developed a vaccinal candidate who has demonstrated an efficiency of 77% after 12 months of inoculation. At least it was part of its IB phase tests, which involved more than 450 children aged 5 to 17 living in Burkina Faso. Nicknamed the Malaria Vaccine R21 / Matrix-M, this marks the first time that such potential treatment of the disease has reached or exceeded the objective of the World Organization’s malaria technology roadmap of the World Organization of the World Organization Health health of global health health of 75%.
“Malaria is one of the leading causes of infant mortality in Africa,” said Professor Charlemagne Ouédraogo, Burkina Faso’s Minister of Health, “Oxford News said in April. “We support tests from a range of new vaccine candidates in Burkina Faso and these new data show that the approval of a very useful new malaria vaccine may well occur in the coming years. This would be a very important new tool for controlling malaria and saving many lives. ‘
The results are so encouraging, researchers (in coordination with Novavax) have already begun to recruit for phase III tests with 4,800 children aged 5 to 36 months, in four African countries. And we have mRNA technology to thank for that.
A primary advantage The mRNA-based treatments have on their conventional drug development counterparts are that the genetic method is generalizable, said the Stephen Floor, Assistant Professor in the Cell Biology Department and Tissues of the UCSF and Senior researcher at the soil laboratory located.
“If you make a traditional small molecule or antibody, there is a lot of optimization and development that must enter,” he noted. “And often, these rules are not well defined. You can not say: “Because this particular molecule worked well on this protein, I predict that other molecule will work on this connected protein. ‘
DNA – The genetic material that makes it invariably more “idiocracy’-addition of clowns every time you refuse to slide on a Jimmy – consists of two-gap, reflected and connected amino acid pairs. Basically, pieces of microscopic meat that indicate to your cells of your descender how to get more from themselves, while taking advantage of getting the most out of having been as little as possible as your famous local monarch.
However, with the mRNA, “we understand the rules of how to write special sequences that will make protein,” continued floor, although we still did not completely understand how to ask the mRNA to target Specific cells. Fortunately, when it comes to antibodies, precise targeting is not necessary because your immune system will not care where the protein comes from, only that it records as a foreign threat. “That’s why it’s been so effective for Covid,” he said. “And that’s why it’s likely to be effective for many other contexts.”
These other contexts are Myriades. These RNA-based treatments have already been examined as candidates for all of the flu in Zika, rabies, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, cystic fibrosis, HIV (tests start this year) – even cancer. Against the latter, a mRNA-based treatment would allow the cells of the patient to construct protein fragments that mimic the genetics mutated a tumor the same way as the COVID vaccine got cells to recreate the surface protein tips. virus and the same response of the immune system.
“MRNA vaccines can be used to target almost all pathogens,” John Jooke, Medical Director of the Houston Methodist Institute’s NRA Therapeutic Research Institute, told AAMC. “You put the code for a particular protein that stimulates an immune response. … It’s essentially unlimited.”
But understand that it is not a money ball to use against any human diseases. They will not be developed close to Covid and Pfizer Covid Vaccines. Researchers work on an HIV vaccine for three decades so far, with very little progress to show it. Although mRNA technology can be able to significantly shorten drug development times, “I do not think we will find ourselves in a situation where each vaccine will be developed in one year,” Dr. Florian Krammer, From Icahn School of Mount Sinai New York, warns.
