TOKYO: The Innovation Center of Nanomedicine, or iCONM, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, or TMIMS, have launched a joint project aimed at swiftly developing a vaccine against the novel coronavirus using ribonucleic acid.

In the collaborative program, the TMIMS will use its recombinant technology to create messenger RNA enoding an antigenic protein.

The iCONM, an organ of the Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion, for its part will make the single-stranded mRNA partially double-stranded so it can actually produce the protein and activate immune cells as powerful weapons to destroy the virus.

In addition, the Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture-based center will apply its nanoscale drug delivery technology to sending a group of many spherically shaped mRNA into immune cells. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

According to Satoshi Uchida, specially appointed assistant professor at the University of Tokyo and the center's researcher, the method worked fine in experiments using mouse and human immune cells.

"Capitalizing on existing technologies, we'd like to develop a vaccine for clinical use as early as possible," said Kazunari Kataoka, head of the iCONM and specially appointed University of Tokyo professor.

JIJI Press