CORONA MENACE: THE ERA OF GENETIC ENGINEERING – THE NEXT GENERATION OF VACCINESFORCORONA VIRUS

Pfizer vs Astra-Zeneca

“Although COVID continues to be the menace but real culprit is the declining vitality of human immune system”

By Prof Kuldip Sidhu

Corona virus seems like not going away easily, its new Delta strain now rampaging nations. NSW early on took pride being the safest place because of its efficient contact tracing system, now struggling with it for Delta strain and including enforcing compliance of health order in community. However, it is not alone, some other metropolis in the world like Brazil, Jakarta, Delhi and alike also suffering. With vaccine against CORONA-19 out there, it remains only a logistic issue and once majority of the population is vaccinated, we may feel safe again.

In all of this, however, we inadvertently forget about the science and genesis behind vaccine development. Although vaccination is nothing new, about 200 years old concept, and we are quite accustomed to it. But evolution of science behind it has changed (new generation vaccines) and that is why a little furore over acceptability of different vaccines, Pfizer or Astra-Zeneca?

There is still a debate going out in community about acceptability of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the products derived thereof. The GMO food products are now pilling on our grocery store’s shelves and we are inadvertently buying and consuming without much ado and cry. However, the impact of genetic engineering in protecting our health is not much appreciated or not aware of. This technology has come along way and its new generation products are so amazing and tantalising that it all appears as Frankenstein science fiction, but all real and may not appear ethical. In this article I want to take you to this journey and apprise how fascinating this field is becoming in our lives*.

The human genome project was completed in 2003 that involved mapping the whole 6 billion bases (letters) in our DNA. We spent about $2.7 billion on this project despite opposition from public, albeit every dollar spent on this project is now giving us a dividend of >$ 400. The benefits derived from this project are tremendous that are revolutionising the whole field of human diagnostics and also paving the way towards therapeutic development – the gene therapy, gene editing (CRISPR-an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats – technology) helping us to correct defective genes at various levels like in HIV, cancer and other single gene defects*. This state-of-the-art technology in genetic engineering is a steppingstone for developing the next generation vaccines. The whole genome of corona virus could be scanned, mapped, synthesised so quickly for developing vaccine.

VACCINE DEVELOPMENT

Our immune system (defence army) has inherent capacity and acquired memory to distinguish self from foreign, any invasion evokes immune response that attacks the foreign entity in our body quickly and consequently eliminated in a very systematic manner. We are borne with innate immunity, but it can also be acquired over time with exposures and experiences. The acquired immunity may be active or passive and each could be either natural or artificial. Once enough people in community are immunised that gives protection to those who cannot be immunised is called the ‘herd immunity. If our immune system is robust enough, we do not need vaccines, our body is self-sufficient, though it declines with age. It is considered that probably due to our over medication or lifestyle the vitality of our immune system is compromised and this is the real concern rather than COVID attack per se. In my previous article on COVID-19, I indicated that only about 20%, mostly elderly and those with some co-morbidity with other diseases scumming to COVID attack. Most of us (approx. 80%) recovered well otherwise just like in common flue because of our innate and acquired immunity. But it turned out that this virus is over clever and can befool our robust immune system – little kids although rarely have recently fallen to it as well as people who were vaccinated.

Old school of vaccine production involves injecting attenuated or killed viruses/bacteria or their toxins directly into our system to evoke immune response like in polio, smallpox, MRR triple vaccine etc. However, new generation of vaccine production involves using either capsid alone (protein cover of the virus), or their sub-units, spike protein S (sub-unit vaccine) with or without adjuvant to enhance potency. The current ones never used before involve using genetic materials like DNA or RNA and then using human biological machinery to produce proteins as antigens (genetic/recombinant vaccines) to evoke immune response.

*Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty (4 April 1938 – 10 Jul 2020) was an Indian American microbiologist, who pioneered recombinant technology and had a great struggle in protecting his technology whereby he could engineer bacteria so that it could convert oil into water. The idea was to clean up oil spillage in seas caused by major ship disasters. The key argument against his discovery was that what if the genetically engineered bacteria escapes into the Persian Gulf!However, he was eventually granted the patent with a stringent oversight.

A CHINESE scientist, Jiankui in 2018 claims to have created the world’s first “genetically edited” babies by CRISPR technology.The twin girl’s embryos were edited in the womb that have now altered DNA, protecting them against HIV, the AIDS virus. But use of the gene-editing procedure has been branded “monstrous” by critics and is banned in embryo now, however, adult cells editing as in some cancers allowed.

To be continued..

Type of immunity including Herd immunity (adapted from webpage)