mRNA technology promises to revolutionize future vaccines and treatments for cancer, infectious diseases

British physician Edward Jenner created the world’s first vaccine in 1796, against smallpox, by injecting a patient with pus from the sores of a milkmaid who had contracted a biologically related virus from cows. And for the last 200 years, researchers have created virtually all vaccines against viruses using that same method: giving people a form of the virus itself. Until 2020. More than 80 million Americans have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — using the game-changing possibilities of mRNA technology. And while some people worry that the technology has been “rushed,” for more than 25 years university labs have been exploring the use of RNA, rather than viruses, to build the body’s immunity against diseases. “The vaccine field has been forever transformed and forever advanced because of COVID-19,” says Dan Barouch, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Harvard Medical School. Messenger RNA...