In the Pfizer symposium “Revising the Paradigm: The Importance of Adult Vaccination Against Respiratory Diseases” at ECCMID 2021, Özlem Türeci (Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of BioNTech SE) discussed mRNA as a therapeutic agent, highlighting the technology that enables mRNA engineering for different applications in her presentation “mRNA Vaccines: The Accelerated Development of a COVID-19 Vaccine Including Clinical Development and Early Data on Effectiveness”.

Accelerated mRNA vaccine development during the current COVID-19 pandemic has been possible for two reasons. Firstly, there already was prior expertise with mRNA technology and its clinical application. Leveraging two decades of development and application of mRNA-based cancer treatments enabled rapid progress in the field. Secondly, mRNA is a versatile molecule that can be easily designed with molecular engineering and manufactured very quickly. 

Furthermore, Türeci outlined features that make mRNA suitable for a variety of therapeutic applications, ranging from cancer to infectious disease.

Key features of mRNA as a therapeutic agent:
-    Natural molecule found universally within cells
-    Does not integrate into the genome
-    Expression is transient
-    Adaptable activity and half-life
-    Suitable to encode for antibodies, antigens, cytokines, and any other type of protein
-    Fast design and manufacture     
-    Rapid and highly scalable production
-    Well-characterized biopharmaceutical with high purity 
 

How do mRNA vaccines work?