Jacob Becraft

Safe and effective covid-19 vaccines have finally provided an exit to the pandemic. The most innovative of these vaccines use messenger RNA—strings of nucleic acids—to instruct cells to make a protein found in the virus, causing the body to produce antibodies against it. Now scientists are eyeing all sorts of other potential uses for this underlying technology.

“With covid-19, we have gone from mRNA being potentially useful to saying we know it works in humans,” says Jacob Becraft. He runs a startup called Strand Therapeutics, which is working on the next step for mRNA—ways to “program” the molecules to do additional useful tricks, like turn on only in specific cell types, at specific times, or automatically copy themselves so as to strengthen their effects. 

Though mRNA’s effects are temporary (because it’s an unstable molecule), using it is in many ways simpler, safer, and faster than trying to change the genome of a cell. One idea the company is pursuing is to use injections of mRNA to instruct the body’s immune cells to attack cancers of the skin and breast. 

Becraft grew up in a small farming community in central Illinois, famous as home to a federal lab that discovered how to mass-produce penicillin during World War II. In high school, he says, he didn’t have patience for pictures of cells, with their labeled parts. 

“It wasn’t until college that I got exposed to biology as a machine, not just a list of things to memorize,” he says. “But when someone tells me how a system works, I get it. I can imagine it.”