By Meenakshi
What is mRNA?
Messenger RNA is a type of single-stranded RNA involved in protein synthesis. mRNA is made from a DNA template during the process of transcription. The role of mRNA is to carry protein information from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus to the cell’s cytoplasm (watery interior), where the protein-making machinery reads the mRNA sequence and translates each three-base codon into its corresponding amino acid in a growing protein chain.
What is saRNA?
Self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) replicon is a type of RNA genome that is unique to certain families of viruses. This highly specialized system lets the virus make multiple copies of its RNA genome, and therefore encoded proteins, from just a single RNA template.
The Future Of mRNA
Scientists look forward to self-amplifying RNA (saRNA), mRNA that can amplify itself on entering the cell. Early research suggests a 6-100-fold increase in potency with saRNA compared to mRNA, while saRNA production reduces the need for RNA and lipids by 6-100-fold.
“Thus, in the context of a pandemic, it would theoretically be possible to make 6- to 100-times more doses of a vaccine with the same batch volume and subsequently have a lower cost of and time required for production.”
A direct comparison shows the price of each 0.3 mL dose of the Pfizer vaccine to be $19.50, which would mean 4.5 million liters of vaccine fluid – enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools! In contrast, saRNA vaccines would require only 0.02 of one pool. The corresponding costs of vaccination for the entire population of the earth would be 150 billion USD vs 1.5 billion USD for the Pfizer vs the theoretical saRNA vaccine, respectively.
Once developed, saRNA could boost plant capacity many-fold for operating plants. Microfluidics also offers large commercial opportunities for scalable high-throughput drug development.
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