Dev Majumdar, Ph.D., an immunologist and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, told VTDigger he fears federal cuts to mRNA vaccine research and development may harm the industry in ways that won’t become fully clear for a decade or more. “There’s no question that mRNA vaccines work,” he noted.
Majumdar, who leads a UVM RNA lab, says, “We are now at a point where the most efficacious of technologies, because it’s new, is causing fear, and that fear has found a political outlet.”
When used in vaccines, messenger RNA, known as mRNA, teach cells to create a protein or parts of protein that lead to an immune response, helping protect a person against a disease. Scientists can use the mRNA platform to develop vaccines more quickly, and the method is an alternative to other forms of vaccines, like those that include a weakened form of a pathogen.
In addition to infectious disease vaccines, mRNA use has shown promise in treating cancer and in gene editing therapies. So far, the latter two applications have not been as targeted by federal funding cuts.
Majumdar fears cuts to vaccine research may harm the industry in ways that won’t become fully clear for a decade or more.
“It’s hurt morale a lot among the people who spend 60 to 80 hours per week working on these things,” he said. “I really, really worry that we’re looking at the precipice of a lost generation of young people that really wanted to go into this, that wanted to cure cancer and fight disease.”
Scientists should continually prioritize how they talk to the public about vaccines and pandemic preparedness, he says. It’s OK for scientists to acknowledge when past work has failed, he argued, and there should be no shame in celebrating successes. “The public is a part of the process, and we have to constantly try to do better to bring the public in,” Majumdar said.