The Long History of mRNA Vaccines | Johns Hopkins | Bloomberg School of Public Health

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s. So, why did it take until the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 for the first mRNA vaccine to be brought to market? In this explainer, Chris Beyrer talks us through mRNA vaccines’ history, development, and breakthroughs. THERE’S A BIG GAP BETWEEN WHEN THE FIRST MRNA FLU VACCINE WAS TESTED IN MICE IN THE 1990S AND WHEN THE FIRST MRNA VACCINES FOR RABIES WERE TESTED IN HUMANS IN 2013. WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE INTERIM? The early years of mRNA research were marked by a lot of enthusiasm for the technology but some difficult technical challenges that took a great deal of innovation to overcome. The biggest challenge was that mRNA would be taken up by the body and quickly degraded before it could “deliver” its message—the RNA transcript—and be read into proteins in the cells. The solution to this problem came from advances in nanotechnology: the developm

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s. So, why did it take until the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 for the first mRNA vaccine to be brought to market? In this explainer, Chris Beyrer talks us through mRNA vaccines’ history, development, and breakthroughs. THERE’S A BIG GAP BETWEEN WHEN THE FIRST MRNA FLU VACCINE WAS TESTED IN MICE IN THE 1990S AND WHEN THE FIRST MRNA VACCINES FOR RABIES WERE TESTED IN HUMANS IN 2013. WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE INTERIM? The early years of mRNA research were ma