How Advances in Nucleic Acid Sequencing and Synthesis are Concurring the COVID-19 Pandemic
As I sit down to write this post 2.7% of the global population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This number is too small but the fact that we have vaccinations available at all is a marvel of modern biotechnology. Let’s review the COVID-19 timeline.
Covid Timeline
December 31, 2019 China reports a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. January 12, 2020 China publicly shares the genetic sequence of COVID-19. January 13, 2020 The first COVID-19 case is reported outside of China. January 30, 2020 WHO’s situation report confirmed cases worldwide.
March 11, 2020 WHO calls COVID-19 a pandemic.
March 30, 2020 the U.S. announces Operation Warp Speed.
April 4, 2020 over 1 million COVID-19 cases have been confirmed worldwide.
July 14, 2020 Moderna publishes Phase I/II clinical trial data
November 9, 2020 Pfizer announces success in phase 3 study.
December 11, 2020 the FDA approves Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Sequencing
It only took a couple of days to sequence the genome of the COVID-19 virus for a few hundred dollars. It wasn’t that long ago that it took 13 years and approximately $1 billion to sequence the human genome. That level of innovation is staggering!
Sequencing the virus allowed scientists to begin studying the virus on a global scale and identifying vaccine targets. For example, knowing the DNA sequence of COVID-19 is what allowed Pfizer and Moderna to identify the spike protein on the vaccines surface as a candidate for their mRNA vaccines.
Synthesis
Most vaccines work by presenting the body with some form of weakened virus that the immune system can attack and remember. In the case of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines a strand of mRNA is used instead. This strand acts as an instruction manual for your body to read and then write the COVID-19 spike protein. Once the protein is produced and your body recognizes it as foreign, it attacks it and remembers it. The acts of remembering a pathogen and being prepared to attack it in the future is known as adaptive immunity and it is the backbone of all vaccines.
To manufacture the mRNA vaccine DNA templates first need to be synthesized. Thanks to modern techniques the time and money needed to make these templates has been greatly reduced. Once the template is established, mRNA vaccines can be made in a matter of minutes rather than days via synthetic nucleotides and cell free enzymes. This is another remarkable advance in the field of biotechnology with wide reaching implications beyond COVID-19.
In addition to vaccine production nucleotide synthesis and sequencing is also used throughout the monoclonal antibody therapeutic development process. These therapeutics have the potential to save lives and much of their rapid development is thanks to improvements in DNA synthesis technology.
The Implications
Beyond the development of life saving vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 in under a year these technologies have been driving and will continue to drive the biotechnology and synthetic biology industries. Incredible innovation is occurring in the space and it will reshape our world in the next few years. While this isn’t news to industry veterans, we have only begun to scratch the surface and the public, investors, policy makers and biotechnologist should take note of the COVID-19 case study and use it as an example to continue to quickly drive innovation and improve our world.
