One of the major changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic is that it lifted medical applications of RNA out of obscurity and to global stardom. Just imagine, trying to promote an mRNA in a lipid nanovesicle as a therapeutic in December 2019. You would have had to work very hard to persuade people that it's probably safe and might actually work. Now you can just point to the mindboggling fact that hundreds of millions of people have received vaccines based on this principle - within six months.
Given that all the experts in the field are currently either busy developing new products or already counting their billions, I went through the back catalogue of RNA therapeutics that were in development before Covid happened, on the assumption that these will now find it much easier to find funding and get approval and actually reach the market.
My feature on those other, non-Covid medical applications of RNA is out now:
The renaissance of RNA therapies
Current Biology Volume 31, issue 12, pages R763-R765, June 21, 2021
FREE access to full text and PDF download
mRNA researcher at the German company BioNTech, which in collaboration with Pfizer brought the first mRNA vaccine to regulatory approval. The company also develops treatments for cancer and other diseases based on mRNA. (Photo: © BioNTech SE 2021, all rights reserved.)
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