To keep IL-12 inside tumors, scientists at Strand designed a set of instructions called a genetic circuit that tells the mRNA to make the inflammatory protein only when it detects the tumor microenvironment. The circuit is designed to sense levels of microRNA—molecules that naturally regulate gene expression and give off different signatures in cancer cells […]
Read MoreNo one expected the first Covid-19 vaccine to be as good as it was. “We were hoping for around 70 percent, that’s a success,” says Dr Ann Falsey, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester, New York, who ran a 150-person trial site for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in 2020. Even Uğur Şahin, the […]
Read MoreOne of mRNA’s strengths is its “remarkable agility,” as Hatchett puts it. Its only raw ingredients are the four amino acid bases that form the “letters” of the RNA sequence, so it can be designed and made pretty rapidly. “Biological manufacturing is very hard and temperamental and has been difficult to introduce in many environments. […]
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