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Five years ago, a medical breakthrough saved an estimated 14 million to 20 million lives in just one year. At its core is a miniscule piece of harmless genetic code that can help train the body to fight off pathogens. And now the current United States Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has pulled the plug on hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding to further this life-saving advance.
We’re talking, of course, about mRNA vaccines, which first became widely available to the public in December 2020, a ray of hope in the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the research to ensure their efficacy and safety had started long before COVID changed the world—in the 1980s. Because, as it happens, research takes time. And money.
The COVID pandemic ramped up research and helped refine the unique technology to bring it into the mainstream, ultimately saving tens of millions of lives around the world. Public health experts argue that mRNA vaccines are especially crucial because they can be adjusted quickly to target emerging viral foes—which is why they advocate for continued funding of this research.
But first, a little vaccine primer.
How vaccines work
Pathogens—whether they cause COVID or influenza, measles or polio—contain antigens, which signal to the body whether or not something is harmful. If a pathogen is harmful, the presence of those antigens prompts the body to make antibodies, which work with the immune systems to kill off the invader. They also prepare the body so the next time that particular assailant attempts to infiltrate, the immune system is ready to jump into action to fend it off.
But we can often skip that first round of illness—or at least lessen it—with tailored vaccines, which use a tiny bit of those antigens to prepare the body to make antibodies before the disease has a chance to enter our systems. For a deadly disease—or one that is more threatening to higher-risk individuals, such as people with compromised immune systems or chronic illnesses or who are very young or very old—avoiding the initial infection can mean avoiding a severe outcome, or even death.
mRNA vaccines are especially crucial because they can be adjusted quickly to target an emerging viral foe.
How mRNA vaccines are different
Long before COVID arrived, scientists were hard at work searching for ways to get our bodies to prepare for diseases without actually exposing people to a disease’s antigens at all. Enter mRNA vaccines, which have been in development since the 1980s, tested in mice since the 1990s, and trialed in humans since the 2010s. So promising was this work—especially in its potential to save lives in the face of a future pandemic—that in the 2010s it even received funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
DNA can’t directly build proteins—it needs a translator. This is where mRNA comes in—single-stranded RNA uses DNA as a template to copy and then carry a specific chunk of information out of a cell’s nucleus and into the cytoplasm, where that information can be put to work making proteins. mRNA acts specifically as a messenger to ferry that information.
An mRNA vaccine is able to skip the step of injecting antigens into the body. Instead it provides those bits of genetic code that instruct our cells to create proteins similar to those found in some viruses. Once our cells make those proteins, the body can use them as training tools to create antibodies specifically geared to fight back when faced with that virus. Because they can be tailored to a specific illness so quickly, they are the best line of defense we currently have against future viral pandemics. And they are also being studied to help counter numerous common infectious diseases, from malaria to HIV, and may even be helpful for genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.
Ripples from research funding cuts
Unlike changing the schedule of recommended vaccines, canceling funding for future vaccine research may not be felt—in terms of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths that could have been avoided—for years to come. But public health experts have already spoken out against the new funding cuts. “This decision will have severe consequences, measured in lost lives, when a rapid vaccine response is needed,” Rick Bright, a former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told STAT News. And in addition to traditional pandemic candidates, such as another SARS virus or influenza, the emergence and spread of novel viruses is becoming an increasing threat due to a changing climate.
“Our public health is dependent on taking collective action. Vaccines remain one of the most powerful collective health tools we have,” National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the U.S., wrote in a statement this week. “Cancelling investment in the most promising vaccine technology we have is a deadly mistake.” 
Lead image: KwangSoo Kim / Shutterstock
