You’re right, we’ve understood that this could be done for a long time. Not quite the 70s, but.. at least the 90s. But believing something is possible and knowing how to do it are different:
“2005 they published a joint paper that solved one of the key technical barriers by using modified nucleosides to get mRNA inside human cells without setting off the body's defense system”
That kicked off a ton of research, but:
“Up until 2020, these mRNA biotech companies had poor results testing mRNA drugs for cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases; selected targets for cancer; and rare diseases like Crigler–Najjar syndrome”
But why did they spend from 2005 to 2020 working on mRNA drugs and not vaccines? Capitalism. Vaccines are not generally profitable (take once, you’re done) - so vaccines are not an appealing target for a startup with investors wanting big returns. (Source: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/)
Yeah seems like vaccine development only started after the high profit objectives suffered failure. That doesn't mean we can't go back to working on those objectives in the future but they needed SOMETHING that would work to show mrna promise. Vaccines you only have to take once or twice so the side effects of immune response aren't too bad and you have an immune response to a vaccine anyways.
Even for the staunchest capitalist, covid has clearly outlined that we need medical research that is separated from market forces. After sars 1 was controlled, research in this area was all but dropped - despite virologists warning that it was just a matter of time before... well, this.
Medical research needs to be driven by what can help people, not by what can make the most money.
PPE too. We still don't have N95s for the public or in some areas even the medical professionals.
If we had a different administration in the USA we may have been able to conquer that quickly with sheer cash and coordination since the knowledge how to build melt blown N95 machines is there. For whatever reason we just didn't.
Read the history section of the rna vaccine wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
You’re right, we’ve understood that this could be done for a long time. Not quite the 70s, but.. at least the 90s. But believing something is possible and knowing how to do it are different:
1989 - injected rna maybe goes into cells
1990 - proof injected rna creates proteins
1994 - proof injected rna creates immune responses
Then:
“2005 they published a joint paper that solved one of the key technical barriers by using modified nucleosides to get mRNA inside human cells without setting off the body's defense system”
That kicked off a ton of research, but:
“Up until 2020, these mRNA biotech companies had poor results testing mRNA drugs for cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases; selected targets for cancer; and rare diseases like Crigler–Najjar syndrome”
But why did they spend from 2005 to 2020 working on mRNA drugs and not vaccines? Capitalism. Vaccines are not generally profitable (take once, you’re done) - so vaccines are not an appealing target for a startup with investors wanting big returns. (Source: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/)