mRNA vaccines are credited with helping to end the COVID-19 pandemic and save millions of lives.Since then, researchers have been developing the technology to prevent a variety of infectious diseases and cancer.But experts warn this progress has been severely impacted after US health secretary Robert F Kennedy announced cuts to mRNA technology research. In total, the US health department will cancel contracts and withdraw $500 million (€427 million) of research funding, it announced on August 8. The announcement was the latest in a series of anti-science policies brought in by President Trump’s second term in office, including a political take-over of federal research grants and withdrawing from the World Health Organization.What does this mean for the future of mRNA vaccine development? We take a look. mRNA vaccines have a long history of safety and efficacymRNA vaccines were first tested in mice to vaccinate against flu in the 1990s, then first tested in humans in 2013 to vaccinate against rabies . It was thanks to these decades of research and testing that mRNA vaccine technology was ready and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kennedy has been a longtime critic of the technology, saying in a video posted to social media platforms that mRNA programs are “troubled”. “We’re prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate,” Kennedy said in the video.What other types of vaccine are in development?There are many types of vaccines in development that have different methods of helping the body to fight a virus. Each technology has advantages and limitations which depend on the disease, the target population, and practical considerations like production speed and costs. Vaccine technology platforms include live (but weakened) and deactivated “whole” pathogen vaccines. The polio vaccine is available in both forms, for example. There are also toxoid-based vaccines, which use inactivated bacterial toxins. Then there are viral vector vaccines, which train the immune system by introducing tiny viral pathogenic fragments into the body. DNA-based therapies are also being considered as another way to provide an accurate target for a human immune response. Luka Cicin-Sain, a viral immunologist at Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, is leading the development of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine. The RSV vaccine is a viral vector product, which uses a low-risk mouse virus to deliver the RSV spike protein to the human immune system. Though still being tested, Cicin-Sain is hopeful that his platform will provide long-lasting immunity against RSV with a single immunization dose. Are other types of vaccines as good as mRNA vaccines?Despite the promise these other vaccine technologies have shown, they haven’t had the same impact as their mRNA cousin. That’s because the benefit of using mRNA technology as vaccines is the ability to quickly adapt their use for new pathogens. “Once you know the structure of the virus, the genetics of the virus, then you can produce a vaccine extremely rapidly,” said Penny Ward, a pharmaceutical physician at Kings College London, UK. In some cases, mRNA vaccines can be more effective at training the body’s immune response to a pathogen.“We don’t seem to produce the same immune response to a DNA vaccine as we have to a [m]RNA vaccine,” said Ward.Will a loss for mRNA research be a gain for other vaccines? There is no guarantee the $500 million funding will flow to other vaccine research.Kennedy is a longtime vaccine critic — he has fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations and shared anti-vax sentiment, including during a measles outbreak in the US in May.Cicin-Sain worries that defunding one branch of vaccine science hinders overall progress in the research field. “I’m not saying that mRNA vaccines can solve everything, but why deny yourself a tool in your toolkit?” Cicin-Sain said. Kennedy’s funding cuts will slow down RNA technology development, Cicin-Sain said, and drive American scientists to compete for funding outside the US, diminishing ongoing vaccine science. Will others step in to fund mRNA vaccine research? While other private and philanthropical research funds do exist to fund mRNA vaccine technologies, it’s unlikely they can fill the $500 million gap left by the Trump administration’s cuts. There’s also no guarantee other national governments will step in to fill the US void. “The funding in Europe has been stagnant,” said Cicin-Sain.“And there are not so many [private] investors out there who think that vaccines are the best way to put their VC [venture capital] at work,” he added.Ward highlighted another problem with cuts to publicly funded vaccine research — governments who fund vaccine research get first access to successful products, which is why Brits were among the first to get the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.“Government funding secures access for countries that are part funders for those products,” Ward told DW. If private funders step in to fund mRNA vaccine research, it could reduce people’s access to those vaccines at an affordable price. “If progress is to be made, and there’s no source of government funding, the industry will fund [research] if they believe there’s a market, but that will be reflected in the price of the eventual product,” Ward said. “No matter how you slice or dice, the net effects are going to be negative,” Cicin-Sain said.
