Could the US rejection of mRNA vaccines impact the fight against cancer? Vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology appeared seemingly out of nowhere at the end of 2020, rapidly entering the public consciousness when mRNA vaccines were commercialised for the first time in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the rapid emergence of mRNA vaccines was not sudden at all, but rather the culmination of decades of research. mRNA – a molecule that carries genetic instructions from DNA to the body’s protein-making machinery – was first discovered in the early 1960s. By the start of this decade, mRNA vaccine technology was more than ready to be deployed commercially. US biopharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna were the first to release their mRNA vaccines against Sars-CoV-2 to the world. But now, funding for their mRNA projects has been axed. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this week that it would begin a “coordinated wind-down of its mRNA vaccine development activities” held under its advanced biomedical research centre. On Tuesday, the HHS said that this was following a review of mRNA-related investments during the Covid-19 pandemic, and would impact 22 projects on mRNA vaccines for respiratory infections worth nearly US$500 million. In a video released to his social media the same day, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr said that data had shown that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively” against Covid-19 and the flu and pose “more risk than benefits”. The HHS said that the use of mRNA technology in other projects will not be impacted by the cut; however, scientific experts have expressed concern over how this could impact wider mRNA vaccine development. Andrew McMichael, emeritus professor of molecular medicine at the University of Oxford, said that Kennedy Jnr’s claim on Tuesday that mRNA vaccines increase the mutation rate of viruses was “impossible”. “The funding cuts greatly threaten health research and public health in the USA and beyond, when countries follow US guidelines,” McMichael told the Science Media Centre on Wednesday. “They could also impact new cancer therapies where mRNA vaccines are being designed to attack particular cancers”. Robin Shattock, a professor at Imperial College London, told the centre that the HHS’s move will “impoverish American resilience to future pandemics” and could be used to legitimise claims that mRNA vaccines are unsafe in general. Many research bodies and companies around the world – including Moderna – are currently testing out the use of personalised mRNA vaccines to treat cancer or prevent its relapse. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the country was close to creating cancer vaccines that could be available to patients in 2025. Earlier this month, Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, told Russian state-owned agency Ria News that in the coming months, skin cancer patients would begin receiving a personalised mRNA vaccine partly developed by the institute. The personalised vaccine will be made by genetically analysing a patient’s tumour to create a “molecular portrait”, which will be used to make a vaccine that will programme the anti-tumour immune system to fight cells that match this profile, according to the Russian health ministry’s National Medical Research Radiological Centre. In February, Beijing-based Likang Life Sciences received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin human clinical trials of its personalised mRNA cancer vaccine, LK101. The Chinese vaccine is also being tested in the country’s island province of Hainan, home of China’s only “medical special zone” where patients can access therapies that are still under trials. The success of mRNA vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic in preventing millions of deaths has paved the way for the approval of future vaccines, and one day, it could even be employed to prevent diseases like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). #Science is awesome 🧬🦾🚀🤯 #Healthspan Advocates #Biohackers Connect https://www.hhs.gov/press..