It's not outrageous to think that mRNA vaccines may allow for more specific targeting in a way that may be less subject to immune escape than previous approaches.
The specific targeting makes it easier to allude the vaccine as only a small part of it has to mutate.
For example, natural immunity recognizes the entire coronavirus, not just the spike as the covid vaccine does. There was a study that natural immunity was more effective against the virus and variants because of this.
You could however have yearly subscription shots like we do now, just mRNA flavored that target the new strains, but there are hundreds.
I don't see the advantage mRNA would have over traditional vaccines for the flu, but for something like cancer or HIV it seems promising. Doing something your immune system can't do by itself.
> The specific targeting makes it easier to allude the vaccine as only a small part of it has to mutate.
Nothing says an mRNA vaccine can't express more than one protein.
That said, I'm talking more about being able to target a portion of the virus that's more fragile than others - somewhere a mutation is likely to make the virus useless if a mutation occurs there.
(The ability to rapidly adjust for mutations is a bonus, too. I'm hoping we get to a regulatory regime eventually where they can tweak overnight and produce fairly locally.)
> There was a study that natural immunity was more effective against the virus and variants because of this.
Sigh, what isn't biased these days? No need to poison the well, the article is clear and sound (to me at least) regardless of who wrote it and why. Do you have any arguments against it? Or your own better analysis of the two studies?
> I'm hoping we get to a regulatory regime eventually where they can tweak overnight and produce fairly locally.
I don't think that's likely. Even if a scientist was able to adjust a vaccine overnight, you'd still need to do a clinical trial to verify that the vaccine doesn't accidentally target something that it shouldn't.
>I don't see the advantage mRNA would have over traditional vaccines for the flu,
The current flu vaccine targeting isn't 100% reliable. If they can get better targeting for the mRNA vaccine it could be a win.
Eggs are used in the process for the traditional vaccine. Some people are allergic to eggs, so they can't take the traditional flu vaccine. For those people the mRNA version would be an option.
I would agree that it isn't an emergency, but there are benefits to it.
For example, natural immunity recognizes the entire coronavirus, not just the spike as the covid vaccine does. There was a study that natural immunity was more effective against the virus and variants because of this.
You could however have yearly subscription shots like we do now, just mRNA flavored that target the new strains, but there are hundreds.
I don't see the advantage mRNA would have over traditional vaccines for the flu, but for something like cancer or HIV it seems promising. Doing something your immune system can't do by itself.