COVID-19 vaccine research could lead to drugs against HIV and cancer: Report

Vaccines against coronavirus were developed using a new technology which scientists are now using to create drugs against HIV, Cancer flu and similar ailments. All the approved vaccine candidates were created using messenger RNA (mRNA), which does not use the actual virus to create the body’s immune response. The success has inspired companies to accelerate efforts at using the mRNA technique to tackle a host of other diseases, with Moderna announcing three new vaccine projects earlier this month.

One of the projects undertaken by Moderna includes a vaccine against HIV, which kills millions of people every year. The company has already begun the development of two vaccine candidates which are scheduled to undergo human trials later this year. Another ambitious vaccine that the American pharmaceutical is developing includes that against common flu.

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The move has also inspired other companies to undertake similar projects. Speaking to NewsWeek, a representative of Pfizer revealed that the company had been working on a common flu virus, along with BioNTech, since a very long time. Meanwhile, Moderna also announced a project that aims at developing a vaccine against Nipah virus. In addendum, several other companies are aiming to develop vaccines against cancer using the mRNA technique.  

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How does new technology work? 

Traditional vaccines use modified or killed virus, or parts of protein present in the virus, to train the body's immune system to kill infections before they take hold. The new mRNA vaccines prompt the body to produce the virus protein, which in the case of COVID-19 is the "spike" protein that the coronavirus uses to infect cells, without using any of the actual viruses, as reported by NewsWeek.

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This comes as the World Health Organization (WHO), on January 22, revealed that it had reached an agreement with Pfizer/BioNTech for 40 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine. The deal was made as a part of the UN agency’s ambitious COVAX programme which aims at inoculating residents in underdeveloped and developing countries. After successfully securing vaccines the WHO now plans to begin their roll out as early as February. Although a distribution plan has not been concreted as yet, experts have speculated that health workers would be prioritised.