The other aspect of this that is tossed around is that this is new technology.
Now, I know that Dr.
Patrick knows more about the technology in terms of the history, but I will
just give you a very short timeline.
Back in the 1990s, we injected for the first time mRNA into the muscle cells
of a mouse, for the very first time.
By 2005, we had modified the nucleotides, which are the signaling in that mRNA
vaccine to get around early destruction.
So the problem early on was that we couldn't allow these messenger
RNA molecules to last long enough to make the protein product.
The problem wasn't that they lasted forever.
It was that they didn't last long enough, but they were able to
finally figure out how to do that.
And by 2013, they started working on medications that were based on mRNA.
And then finally, we have the vaccines.
Here is a paper that was published in 1990, so over 30 years ago, that was
for the first time showing that this technology actually had viability.
And so this technology is not new.
It's been around for 30 years, and it's been looked at.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Dr.
Patrick.
I think she has some more details on this.
[Dr.
Patrick] : Yes.
I do.
You know, in addition to this technology not being new in the sense that
everyone...most people think this is the first time it's actually been used
in humans, just to kind of speak to your point about the acceleration of
the process of getting this vaccine into people, and you were talking
about all the money that's available for building the factories, I think
another really important thing to point out is the difference between
this vaccine and our history of vaccines in terms of how we make them.
For the mRNA vaccines, all you need is the sequence.
That's all you need to make it.
And it's so easy to make in mass, mass, mass quantities versus
having to actually grow vaccine in some kind of animal cell type.
And like, I mean, you're limited.
There's a limitation in how much of it you can make, physically, limitation.
So, just going back to the actual history of mRNA vaccines and
this mRNA technology in humans.
In 2001, we have the first clinical trial of this mRNA technology that was made.
It was mRNA-induced dendritic cells.
In 2009, we have another clinical trial where mRNA was used as a therapeutic.
In 2014, there's the first mRNA vaccine in terms of immunotherapy for cancer, so
trying to treat cancer with mRNA vaccines.
These are all in humans.
In 2017, there were 2 clinical trials, one for mRNA-based vaccine for influenza,
and another one for mRNA technology used to treat patients with heart...basically
had heart failure, and they were injecting mRNA vaccines into their heart.
So, we've got a lot of clinical data dating back to 2001 where we've been
using this technology in humans, you know.
So this is not the new technology that people in their minds they think that
this is the first time it's ever been used in humans and how scary that is.
It dates back to decades, well, you know, a couple of decades being used in humans.
To kind of add to that, I really...moving forward, it's amazing how this field
has exploded in terms of all the clinical trials now being started
and planned for this mRNA technology.
There is so much interest, and there's a lot of funding now to understand
this technology as a therapeutic for infectious diseases in addition to
the SARS-CoV-2 virus for other ones.
There are now clinical studies that are now starting to look at this
technology to treat genetic disorders like muscular dystrophy where
there's no treatment that exists.
Can you imagine being the parent of a son that has muscular dystrophy and
knowing there is no treatment and having to watch your son degenerate and die?
I mean, we may see a treatment for muscular dystrophy in
our lifetime because of this.
It's accelerated and exploded this clinical arena where now we're seeing
tons and tons of trials for mRNA vaccines as immunotherapy for cancers
where they're going to be injecting this mRNA technology into a variety
of different types of solid tumors.
And again, we may very well in our lifetime now see a cure for
different types of solid tumors.
Solid tumors are the type of cancers that are hardest to treat with
chemotherapy because they often grow far away from blood vessels.
And so blood vessels, you need them to be close to the cancer site because
that's how the chemotherapeutic gets, you know, delivered to the tumor site.
And so you'll get these tumors growing far away from them.
They're what's called hypoxic.
They're growing far away from blood vessels.
And so it's one of the reasons why many different solid tumors are resistant to
many types of chemotherapeutic treatments.
So imagine being able to directly inject the tumor with this mRNA technology
where we're going to, you know, test a variety of different immune generating,
you know, molecules and things that are going to activate the immune system to go
right directly to that tumor and kill it.
It's a very exciting time, and I understand that people are
scared because it's new to them.
And it's always scary when something, you know, is new, and there's change.
But there's a bright side, and that bright side is, is that science is
moving forward at an accelerated rate.
And we are witnessing something that would have not have happened otherwise
without this terrible pandemic that obviously a lot of bad has come out of.
But, you know, to try to see the silver lining here, the good out of it is
that the science has really catapulted forward, and there's some exciting
stuff going on with the mRNA technology.