Nobel laureate talks about pandemic prevention

But while this is worrying news, a new and inexpensive approach to protection might also be achieved, Prof Roger David Kornberg recently told The Nation.

The Israeli Nobel laureate was in Thailand for the Japan-ASEAN bridges series event, facilitated by the International Peace Foundation, to give lectures and talks to the next generation of scientists in various institutes.

He discussed issues such as climate change and energy solutions but perhaps the most intriguing was the possibility of no more pandemics.

A discovery 30 years in coming

Prof Kornberg said the discovery by his team unlocked the one limitation to the therapeutic approach that won the Nobel prize 30 years ago. He said the drug could be produced back then but it was unable to enter human cells.

“So now what we produce is the same drug with a small change that enables entry to human cells and that is the solution to the problem. We have this capacity now.”

He is adamant that what his lab has developed will help prevent any future pandemic. “What we can do now is provide an inhaler whereby an individual with one single administration in each nostril will be immediately protected from disease,” he explained.

Since this preventive drug comes in a nasal spray form rather than in an injectable or pill format and requires just a single administration, most people would be willing to adopt it.

One solution for any possible pandemic?

Prof Kornberg explained that with any respiratory viral disease, any virus that can enter the nose and the lungs can cause a pandemic of the kind that has occurred with influenza in the past and now with SARS-CoV-2.

There have been four influenza pandemics in the last century, and most likely will be more coming, with the expectation that each will be much more dangerous.

“With our approach, inexpensive perfect protection may be achieved. I doubt that anyone faced with the likelihood of death from a very dangerous virus would refuse just to spray themselves once in their nose and protect themselves”.

In a matter of minutes

What is needed now, he added, is a nod from governments to put in place the infrastructure for rapid production and make the nasal spray commercially available.

When the new virus appears, countries with this setup will have the capacity to determine the genome sequence of the virus within hours.

“Knowledge of the genome sequence is all that is required to program the machine to produce the medication for the new virus. The machine will produce the medication in a matter of minutes,” Prof Kornberg said confidently, adding that production will be automatic.

Therefore, assuming that a sufficient number of these machines are in place, governments would be in a position, within one to three days, to distribute millions of small bottles, at the cost of a few dollars each to everyone in the country willing to protect themselves.

“In that case, there will be no pandemic.”

How it works

The Nobel Laureate believes this method would definitely be effective, even if it’s a new strain of virus that mutates rapidly.

“The mechanism is well understood, “ he said

Professor Kornberg explained that this is a mechanism that exists in every cell of the human body, saying it is only necessary to supply the drug, which consists of a very small piece of RNA that exactly matches the sequence of the viral genome. “When that match occurs, it always works.”

If this approach is adopted by governments and if the countries are prepared, the moment a new virus of concern appears, all they need to do is push the buttons on the machine to identify the viral genome sequence.

“What will be produced is, as I have said, a small piece of RNA that is an exact match to the viral genome sequence that through the small addition that we have made, achieves entry into human cells. And when sprayed in the nostrils, it will enter every one of the cells that line the nasal passages and also the additional passageway to the lungs. And then all of those cells are immune to infection”.

Thus, if a virus enters the body through inhalation, it will not be able to infect our cells.

Government pace is the challenge

With the available technology and assuming that governments give this drug a nod after it's proven successful, the world will have some kind of prevention against future pandemics.

The approach has already been presented to various governments by Prof Kornberg in the past couple of years, including China, the United States, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates.

Human testing will continue in Israel throughout the year and the scientist hopes to have good news to share by the end of 2024.

However, what might slow everything down is politics.

“That's always the issue,” Profesor admitted.

He said that science, in general, can provide new knowledge, and discoveries of potential benefit. Sometimes the discoveries also carry potential risks, but in the end, it is not the scientific community but society and politicians who will exploit a potential benefit or decide to control the risks.

“In this case, there are no risks, there is no potential danger. There is no way that this could be used to cause harm.”