ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY)  — The COVID-19 vaccine could put an end to the pandemic, but its key player, messenger RNA, has been experimented with for years.

For many people, the idea of m-RNA likely didn't come up until recently.

"To the common person, it came out of nowhere. You'd never heard of it and then all of the sudden you know about it, but that's not uncommon," said Luis Schang, professor of chemical virology at Cornell.

Schang says research began in the 1970s during gene therapy trials.

"It was the first work in finding ways to get things into the cell. There has always been concern that altering the genome could have long-term consequences."

Scientists needed to find a way around altering someone's DNA. According to Schang, DNA is like a set of blueprints for your body and something has to tell your body what to do with those blueprints.

"That set of instructions to assembling each protein is what is called the messenger RNA or RNA."

Researchers realized the body wouldn't recognize the synthetic m-RNA as a foreign body, allowing the messenger RNA to make changes to proteins in the cell.

"Not repair a set of instructions to the blueprint, but repair the right set of instructions that go to the protein. They can then make the right protein."

Schang says the idea came out shortly after gene therapy trials.

"Many years ago, and we're talking about the late 80's early 90's, people started to think that instead of altering the genome, we can change the messenger."

Researchers needed to figure out a way to safely deliver messenger RNA into someone's body. 

"And soon it was clear that one of the obvious applications of these was to make vaccines," Schang said.

Human trials started in 2017. At the time, Schang says there weren't enough infected people for a clinical vaccine trial.

"You need to get a certain number of infected people. In this case, because of the mortality rate and so forth, it was estimated 20,000 people for the vaccine and 20,000 for the placebo."

The number of COVID-19 cases grew rapidly and getting 20,000 people wasn't as far-fetched.

"Most of the speeding here was a big investment, a massive investment that wasn't present for previous vaccines. In the case of the epidemic, the number of cases for a clinical trial is very very large," Schang said.

Schang says the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine and further research on m-RNA could help scientists develop a cure for some types of cancer.

"In some cancers, and there are many types of cancers, there is a mutated protein that drives the growth of cancer. The idea was to, instead of correcting the gene, which is, on certain levels risky, correcting the messenger so now they express only the normal protein."

With proof that m-RNA can be effective in the form of a vaccine, Schang believes companies will be more likely to fund research for cancer immunotherapy.