Developing mRNA Vaccines towards Zika virus

All mRNA vaccines as a relatively newly developed branch of vaccine have shown a great prosperous future. Unique from the traditional vaccines, mRNA vaccines are fundamentally different in mechanism when promoting immunity for the body. This optimism is built on recently published studies demonstrating the efficacy of mRNA vaccines in combatting several types of cancer and infectious pathogens where conventional vaccine platforms may fail to induce protective immune responses. Traditional vaccines often contain a weakened or inactivated virus that our body can recognize as a real virus without putting us in danger, whereas the mRNA vaccine only carries out the instructions for our body to produce certain types of proteins that counter the virus. With the new Covid vaccine as a great representative, mRNA vaccines carry the genetic codes in messenger RNAs for proteins to recognize the need to build immunity for the virus. One of the most significant developments in progress includes the mRNA vaccine for Zika virus, a single-stranded RNA virus that can cause birth defects and is currently no cure or definite prevention. This review summarizes recent developments in mRNA vaccines from the past few years and discusses the challenges and future directions for the field.