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National
1.) Focusing on genetic material called mRNA allowed researchers to overcome scientific barriers and develop the two vaccines now used in the United States. Here’s how it happened.
(Image courtesy of National Human Genome Research Institute via Courthouse News)
(CN) The United States marked a new age in vaccine science when the first candidates it deployed against the coronavirus also marked the first time a vaccine has relied on messenger RNA, or mRNA.
Like all vaccines, the goal of mRNA vaccines is to prime the immune system to respond to a specific foreign agent. In preventing the spread of Covid-19, the target is the pandemic-unleashing coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2.
Vaccines like the Oxford-AstraZeneca version which is available in Europe but not yet approved in the United States achieve that goal using virus DNA: Genes from the spike proteins that stud the coronavirus are put into a cold virus that has been weakened, and then injected into patients.
Holly Gramazio/Flickr
This week we’re dedicating the whole show to the 20th anniversary of the publication of the human genome. Today, about 30 million people have had their genomes sequenced. This remarkable progress has brought with it issues of data sharing, privacy, and inequality.
Host Sarah Crespi spoke with a number of researchers about the state of genome science, starting with Yaniv Erlich, from the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science and CEO of Eleven Biotherapeutics, who talks about privacy in the age of easily obtainable genomes.
Next up Charles Rotimi, director of the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health at the National Human Genome Research Institute, discusses diversity or lack thereof in the field and what it means for the kinds of research that happens.