Tonight, I watched the London Calling 2024 session on “Optimizing QC testing of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.” Telmo Graca from Lonza, Switzerland, was the speaker for this session. They had learning objectives for the ten-minute talk. The three learning objectives focused on providing an overview of the requirements for mRNA therapeutics, the collaboration process between Lonza and ONT, and how Nanopore was implemented to simplify the process of development and manufacturing and QC release of mRNA. Lonza follows WHO guidelines for mRNA vaccine development. Graca shared how Lonza and ONT leadership met to develop a collaboration in 2022. Graca explained how they use long-read sequencing, the 2022 Nature Methods method of the year, to meet the mRNA vaccine requirements. Both companies have the expertise to contribute to the mRNA manufacturing process. Throughout the mRNA process, the integrity of the mRNA and identity have to be controlled, as mentioned by Graca. The project uses the GridION Q to generate fast results and improve the process of mRNA QC, which can then be applied to other products. Graca said they hope to use the ONT approach for quality control and research.
