HGCO19: mRNA Vaccine Candidate | 14 Apr 2021

Why in News

India's mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate-HGCO19 has received additional government funding for its clinical studies.

• This funding has been awarded under the 'Mission Covid Suraksha’.

Key Points

• HGCO19:
  
  • The novel mRNA vaccine candidate, HGCO19 has been developed by Pune-based biotechnology company Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. in collaboration with HDT Biotech Corporation, USA.
  • HGCO19 has already demonstrated safety, immunogenicity, neutralization antibody activity in the rodent and non-human primate models.
  • Gennova has initiated the enrolment of volunteers for Phase 1/2 clinical trials for its vaccine candidate HGCO19.
• mRNA Vaccine vs Traditional Vaccines:
  
  • Vaccines work by training the body to recognise and respond to the proteins produced by disease-causing organisms, such as a virus or bacteria.
  • Traditional vaccines are made up of small or inactivated doses of the whole disease-causing organism, or the proteins that it produces, which are introduced into the body to provoke the immune system into mounting a response.
  • mRNA vaccines tricks the body into producing some of the viral proteins itself.
    
    • They work by using mRNA, or messenger RNA, which is the molecule that essentially puts DNA instructions into action. Inside a cell, mRNA is used as a template to build a protein.
• Functioning of mRNA Vaccines:
  
  • To produce a mRNA vaccine, scientists produce a synthetic version of the mRNA that a virus uses to build its infectious proteins.
  • This mRNA is delivered into the human body, whose cells read it as instructions to build that viral protein, and therefore create some of the virus’s molecules themselves.
  • These proteins are solitary, so they do not assemble to form a virus.
  • The immune system then detects these viral proteins and starts to produce a defensive response to them.
• Advantages of Using mRNA based Vaccines:
  
  • mRNA vaccines are considered safe as mRNA is non-infectious, non-integrating in nature, and degraded by standard cellular mechanisms.
  • They are highly efficacious because of their inherent capability of being translatable into the protein structure inside the cell cytoplasm.
  • Additionally, mRNA vaccines are fully synthetic and do not require a host for growth, e.g., eggs or bacteria. Therefore, they can be quickly manufactured inexpensively to ensure their "availability" and "accessibility" for mass vaccination on a sustainable basis.

SOURCE: PIB