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BERLIN—To date, mRNA vaccines have had their largest global presence in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensive research is underway on many other potential applications for this vaccine technology, which suggests a promising future. Martina Prelog, MD, a pediatric and adolescent medicine specialist at the University Hospital of Würzburg in Germany, reported on the principles, research status, and perspectives for these vaccines at the 25th Travel and Health Forum of the Center for Travel Medicine in Berlin.

To understand the future, the immunologist first examined the past. "The induction of cellular and humoral immune responses by externally injected mRNA was discovered in the 1990s," she said.

Significant hurdles in mRNA vaccinations included the instability of mRNA and the immune system's ability to identify foreign mRNA as a threat and destroy mRNA fragments. "The breakthrough toward vaccination came through Dr Katalin Karikó, who, along with Dr Drew Weissman, both of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, discovered in 2005 that modifications of mRNA (replacing the nucleoside uridine with pseudouridine) enable better stability of mRNA, reduced immunogenicity, and higher translational capacity at the ribosomes," said Prelog.

With this discovery, the two researchers paved the way for the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 and other diseases. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery last year.
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