St John’s academic awarded £4 million grant to ‘think big’ and investigate side effects of modern therapeutics
“This grant will allow us to understand how our bodies react to these modern medicines”
Why some people experience adverse reactions to the new-age medicines including Covid-19 vaccinations will be explored in detail thanks to a £4.3 million MRC Programme Grant.
Dr Ritwick Sawarkar, College Lecturer and Fellow at St John’s, will lead the research into why some people react to RNA-based therapeutics such as the Covid mRNA vaccines and other medicines.
Medical Research Council (MRC) Programme Grants provide large, long-term and renewable programme funding for researchers working in the area of molecular cell biology research. They aim to help the medical science community to ‘think bigger’.
Vaccines are designed to give you immunity without the dangers of getting the disease. Like any vaccine, Covid-19 vaccines can cause side effects, most of which are mild or moderate and go away within a few days on their own. However, more serious or long-lasting side effects are possible.
Dr Sawarkar, who leads the Sawarkar Group based at the MRC Toxicology Unit in Cambridge, explained: “RNA Therapeutics have tremedous potential to treat rare genetic diseases as well as common conditions such as neurodegeneration. These new therapeutic entities can be rapidly designed for individual patients, can correct genetic errors and can make a difference between life and death for several children around the world.
“However, we do not fully understand the short- and long-term effects the RNA Therapeutics can have on our bodies. The MRC Programme grant will allow my group to understand how the molecules and cells in our body react to these modern medicines, based on which we can design safer RNA Therapeutics for future generations.”
Published: 31/1/2025