The oncoming tsunami of RNA therapeutics

The oncoming tsunami of RNA therapeutics Alan Herbert, Founder and President of InsideOutBio, discusses the significant advancements in RNA therapeutics, highlighting their role in supporting public health and their transformative potential in modern medicine, particularly for addressing genetic conditions and cancer. Currently, much attention is focused on healthy life-span extension. We forget that in 1900, the life expectancy for many countries was around 40, not the 70 years or more common today. As part of our cultural amnesia, we overlook the threat that pathogens have historically posed to killing individuals at a young age. The advances in life expectancy have come from improvements in water and sewage management, the elimination of insect vectors, such as fleas, lice, and mosquitoes, that transmit infectious agents, and from universal vaccination. The SARS-CoV pandemic was a grim reminder of that earlier time when 10-50% of the population died. In the current era, increasingly dense urbanization and rapid worldwide travel allow the rapid spread of similar human pathogens.