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It's not only the success of the COVID mRNA vaccines that has scientists interested in making mRNA vaccines for other diseases.

"RNA is a lot easier to make," Cooke told DW. A lot of vaccines are protein-based, but with mRNA vaccines, scientists just need to write the code for a protein, rather than making the proteins.

Phillip Sharp, a professor of biology at MIT, co-won the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of split genes and spliced RNA in the 1970s. His work contributed to the COVID mRNA vaccines that people around the world are being injected with today.

"Anyone who's ever experimentally studied RNA knows that your skin is covered with nucleases that destroy it, your blood is full of nucleases that destroy it," Sharp told DW.

The fact that scientists discovered a way to protect the RNA and make it in a sufficient quantity to be used as a vaccine was a big technical step forward, he said.

"It took a lot of innovation to do that," said Sharp. "Once you develop a new technology, such as the mRNA technology, man will use it for as long as there are societies who can deal with technology,"

Cooke doesn't think it is likely that there will be a universal vaccine against cancer, but he does believe that just like scientists have been able to eradicate some infectious diseases, the same will happen for some cancers.

"We're going to have another arrow in our quiver against cancer," Cooke said. 

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