Before the pandemic, the Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) magazine published many articles on mRNA, adenoviral vectors technology and I have included articles and headlines below. Ultimately, these technologies were originally used for gene therapy, but they wanted to expand to vaccines, but they were not considered safe as late as 2019. We also see large investments in the new vaccine technology that would be used during the pandemic in the years leading up to it, some even specifically for respiratory diseases. Since I committed the grave crime of doing my own research and actually reading these articles, I was accused of being an antivaxxer by people who did not bother reading them at all. One thing I do know is you do not choose a new unproven technology during an emergency and coerce the global population to take it, unless you have a hidden agenda. Imagine the absurdity of a patient checking into a hospital with a heart attack and the doctor claiming he is going to try a brand new procedure that is unproven and untested to heal the patient. He would be sued for malpractice.
In 2022, C&EN had a series of articles titled “Drugging Our RNA.” I can no longer find this page on their website, but I saved a screenshot, included it below for verification, and have added which articles are part of that series.
The articles used to be freely available even months into the pandemic, but have since been placed behind a paywall after three free articles. Unless otherwise stated, the articles are from the C&EN.
October 11, 2010 – Tracking mRNA Particles
March 30, 2011 – mRNA as gene therapeutic: How to control protein expression (Journal of Controlled Release)
October 24, 2011 – Modifying Messenger RNA
November 18, 2013 – Gene Silencing By Design
December 13, 2013 – Adenovirus Vectors for Gene Therapy, Vaccination and Cancer Gene Therapy (Current Gene Therapy Journal)
March 16, 2015 – Gates Foundation Backs mRNA Vaccines
July 11, 2016 – Vertex and Moderna pursue mRNA for CF
September 12, 2016 – Moderna raises cash, invests in manufacturing
February 13, 2017 – CRISPR’s breakthrough problem
August 28, 2017 – AstraZeneca, Ethris sign mRNA agreement
December 21, 2017 – Scientists use directed evolution to develop better viruslike capsules
January 8, 2018 – BioNTech raises $270 million
March 15, 2018 – Novartis, UNC study suggests mRNA structures are a common, untapped pool of drug targets
June 17, 2018 – Sanofi and Translate Bio to make mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases
July 20, 2018 – Moderna opens mRNA manufacturing facility
August 17, 2018 – Pfizer and BioNTech to develop mRNA flu vaccines
September 3, 2018 – Can mRNA disrupt the drug industry? – Drugging Our RNA Series
October 30, 2018 – How is directed evolution changing the world? – Drugging Our RNA Series
November 12, 2018 – Moderna, maker of mRNA therapies, files for record IPO
January 15, 2019 – Is this the decade of RNA? – Drugging Our RNA Series
February 18, 2019 – Epitranscriptomics: The new RNA code and the race to drug it – Drugging Our RNA Series
February 20, 2019 – Moderna and AstraZeneca’s mRNA therapy for heart regeneration passes Phase I safety test
March 25, 2019 – Watch out, CRISPR. The RNA editing race is on – Drugging Our RNA Series
July 12, 2019 – BioNTech raises $325 million for mRNA therapy and more
October 5, 2019 – Translate Bio taps AMRI to make mRNA
February 27, 2020 – Gilead and Moderna lead on coronavirus treatments
March 18, 2020 – BioNTech joins coronavirus vaccine race
April 3, 2020 – Will the coronavirus help mRNA and DNA vaccines prove their worth?
April 3, 2020 – Sanofi and Translate Bio add coronavirus to vaccine pact
May 1, 2020 – Moderna picks Lonza to make 1 billion doses of its coronavirus vaccine
May 12, 2020 – Adenoviral vectors are the new COVID-19 vaccine front-runners. Can they overcome their checkered past?
June 23, 2020 – Sanofi invests $425 million in Translate Bio’s mRNA vaccines
July 23, 2020 –GSK and CureVac sign mRNA vaccine and therapy deal
