15 Dec Mineral coatings could enable shelf-stable mRNA therapies

By Tom Ziemer, UW News

A protective mineral coating identified by University of Wisconsin–Madison biomedical engineering researchers could allow powerful messenger RNA therapeutics like COVID-19 vaccines to be stored at room temperature, making them more accessible to lower-resourced communities across the world.

In a new paper in the journal Acta Biomaterialia, Professor William Murphy and collaborators in his lab detail how using an optimized mineral coating composition can maintain mRNA activity for up to six months at room temperature. With that kind of preservation, mRNA therapeutics — vaccines against infectious diseases, but also emerging treatments for cancer and tissue regeneration — could be stored on the shelf at local clinics.

The rapid development of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines was a gamechanger in the pandemic. The vaccines employ mRNA to direct cells to produce a protein from the surface of the virus, triggering an immune response that preps our bodies for the real thing.

Multiple estimates show the vaccines, a result of decades of incremental mRNA research — some of which resulted in a 2023 Nobel Prize — saved millions of lives. Read more…