Quote:
Originally Posted by Lune
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That's close to how it works but not quite. mRNA vaccines don't permanently or even temporarily change the genome of anything-- they don't touch the genome. Cells use mRNA, which is transcripted as a 'copy' of a section of your genome, to encode the production of proteins elsewhere in the cell. Like if you think of a cell like a corporation that has a headquarters and a factory, your DNA is in the headquarters, which writes mRNA mail to send to the factory across town in the endoplasmic reticulum, which uses the mRNA directions to build a protein.
mRNA vaccines simply insert those directions directly into the cell, which takes them and makes them into immunity-significant pieces of the virus, which the cell then excretes. Those pieces get picked up by your immune system which recognizes--and destroys-- them when they show up again in the form of covid.
mRNA vaccines have a potential safety advantage in that they don't actually use any form of viable virus at all-- it is impossible for anyone to get infected with anything through the use of one. It is also cheaper and more efficient to mass produce. The downsides are that it is difficult and costly to transport and store because the mRNA is very fragile. We've also never mass produced and mass vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine before, but it's extremely cutting edge, and is thought to produce superior protection more safely than the traditional viral vector vaccines developed by Russia and China. But given the novelty we simply haven't seen how things pan out long term (multiple years). Still better than risking it tangling with covid as long as they finish out the phase III trials.
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this sounds mostly right but -- how do you account for the durability of the vaccination if nothing is encoded permanently? where's the perma change? I thought the mRNA was used for the dna polymerase to transcribe into DNA in this case, not for it to be made into a protein ^^