India has mRNA technology against Covid-19, says scientist

New Delhi, May 16: Dr N Madhusudan Rao, CEO-Atal Incubation Centre at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), on Monday said India had developed mRNA technology against Covid-19.

He said the mRNA platform had an advantage of flexibility which was not with other vaccine platforms. The Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) recently announced the development of the country's first potential mRNA vaccine candidate to fight against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) , stating that it had an advantage of flexibility which was not with other vaccine platforms. Also Read |  Canada: Punjab's Moga youth Navkiran Singh found dead in Brampton river The mRNA technology is a messenger RNA, a copy of DNA sequence, and is a blueprint to make a protein. In mRNA vaccine, the mRNA carries the sequence information of spike protein. This mRNA is encapsulated in lipid formulation and injected into the body. In the body cells, it makes the spike protein, which stimulates protective antibodies to fight the coronavirus. In an interview, Dr Rao, a lead Scientist of the mRNA platform, said, "We have mRNA technology against the Covid, we can say this. The west was using only mRNA vaccine for the pandemic, but somehow it never got to other countries." Dr Rao further explained that in the context of Covid-19 where there is a constant shift of variant of concerns, mRNA vaccine is quickly redesigned. "...especially makes more sense in the context of COVID where there is a constant shift of the variants of concern. During a previous vaccine and COVID seems to be less effective and then people get worried. So, this platform gives you an opportunity to quickly rehash your platform to the new variant in a very short time. Other conventional platforms have a more, a bit longer turnaround time to adapt to the new variants, but this one does which is a major advantage," he said. Also Read | 66 KV grid at Punjab's Lehra Mohabbat power plant catches fire, power supply disrupted He said these vaccines were cost-effective. "The second advantage is the cost of infrastructure. You can come up with the same million kinds of numbers of doses in a much smaller setup. The flexibility and the lower input costs set us to go for it and we basically want to demonstrate that we can do it," Dr Rao added. -PTC News